ABSTRACT
Senzeni Marasela’s “Theodorah and Gebane: Dolly Parton” series, made in 2016, is comprised of 32 collages that incorporate photocopies of iconic photographs of the performer, Dolly Parton, coupled with images of the artist herself. Marasela is represented wearing a dress constituted from red isishweshwe fabric in a style that is standard amongst many conservative married women in rural areas of South Africa. The style of dress emanates from a performance in which Marasela consistently dressed in this way, no matter the occasion, between 1 October 2013 and 30 September 2019. In the chapter, it is argued that, by representing herself in a red isishweshwe dress meeting up with Parton, Marasela exposes the fact that, like the country-and-western star, she is self-consciously adopting a construct of appropriate womanliness in such a way as to transgress and question it.
