‘Peel the Wound’- Cape Town as Passage, Threshold, and Dead End: Performing the Everyday Traumas of Mobility and Dislocation

Abstract

The highways leading to and from Cape Town are spotted with roadside crosses which mark the places where lives were lost in transit. But what about those whose life narratives were cut short on the road, who never reached their destinations, or for whom there are no signs to mark their ending? How does one tell these stories of movement and stasis? In recent performances whose content and stage aesthetics are shaped by the experience of mobility, the notion of Cape Town as Threshold, Passage or Dead End resonates strongly for a number of reasons.

What happened to those people who started their journey and never got there? They leave, and then we don’t know what happened? [] It’s painful to tell stories. It’s chok- ing forme to tell the stories, hut it’s also choking for you to listen to the stories. But if we run away from that, it means we are lying hecause that story hasn’t disappeared and will come hack more painfully. (Mbothwe, 2010b)