A girlhood disrupted: performing memory using the girlfriend aesthetic

Abstract

In this article, I discuss Katuntu (…and you too), a work I devised and performed with Injairu Kulundu in fulfilment of my Masters in Theatre Making from the University of Cape Town in October 2009. In the play, we harnessed memory to depict loss caused by an uprooted girlhood, portraying the consequences of fragmented memory on Black African women with immigrant pasts, in the hope that it might resonate with others who share the experience of similarly disrupted girlhood. We used song performance in the creation of shared girlfriend memory. I argue that the concept of girlfriend aesthetic offers a methodology for re-membering by providing a reflective surface upon which one sees in the experience of the girlfriend other, something that incites one’s own memory.