Bride from the play Death and The King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka

Bride from the play Death and The King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka

This costume belongs to a pregnant bride, a character from the play "Death and the Kings horseman" by Wole Soyinka. The play is based on events that actually happened in Nigeria during British colonial rule. There is a misunderstanding, a collision of cultures between the British and Yoruba tribe. In the play, as an outcome the whole Yoruba belief system gets disrupted. The community is thrown off balance, and they fear what the future might bring.
My costume represents this clash and the fears of unknown in shapes, colour and cultural elements of Yoruba. The main costume is traditional Yoruba bridal costume. In the trail there are pray sashes for specific Gods, a general mess to represent chaos and two babies.
I decided that the bride would be pregnant with twins, since Yoruba tribe has high dizygotic twinning rate, and there is an interesting belief related to twins. The second one to born is considered to be the eldest. It is believed, that the second born sends the first born to check if the world is good enough to be born in, and if he/she cries, it is a sign for the second one that everything is in order. That is why there is one baby at the hip, and one at the end of the trail, checking what is the state of the world.
The costume is 95% made of recycled materials, such as stockings, bra straps, plastic bags, curtains, sheets, clothes, fruit nets, bubble wrap, belts, newspaper, scarfs, woollen string, ties, pillow cases, zippers, swimming cap and scrap fabric. It weights a little over 15kg, so a lot of materials used!

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