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My body is an archive of a history of South Africa. I am the embodiment of the history of colonialism and apartheid. I have the body of the coloniser. Although I actively commit to anti-racism and to accept accountability and take responsibility for colonialism and apartheid, my white South African body remains a coloniser due to white privilege. My white body is ‘both the questioner and the question’ (Atkins, 2004:345).
Sarahleigh Castelyn is a performer, choreographer, and researcher: a dance nerd. She is an Associate Professor/ Reader in Performing Arts in the School of Arts and Creative Industries at the University of East London (U.K.). Her dance research focuses on race, gender, sexuality, and nation in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, the politics of hybridity, and the use of practice as a research methodology. She has performed in and choreographed dance works, for example at JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Festival (SA) and Queen Mary (UK) She serves on several editorial and organisation boards, such as Research in Dance Education and HOTFOOT. She has published on dance and South Africa, for instance in Viral Dramaturgies (2018) and Narratives in Black British Dance (2018), and in journals such as The African Performance Review, Dance Theatre Journal, Animated, African Performance Review, and The South African Theatre Journal.
