volkspele dress

There was a photo album of my mom as a young girl in the long corridor of my grandmother’s house. I used to take it off the shelf and look at it whenever in we were up in Hoedspruit for a weekend. As a kid I was mesmerized by these images of my mom over the years. From little baby girl playing with porcelain dolls to adolescent girl at the matric dance, complete with a beehive.

There were some of the pictures, where my mom was I think still in primary school, where her hair was cut in a style that seemed almost boyish, which made her look a bit like a tomboy. And then there were pictures of her with her hair cut in a bob and she looked more girlish. I think, on a subconscious level, the slight sense of androgyny that I discovered in these images must have appealed to me at a young age.

What I loved most about these albums were the pictures of my mom in various costumes for school events. I forget all the themes, but I can remember some of these images vividly. There were two I was extremely fond of, in one; she had to dress up as a boy. She looked a bit like a pageboy. She looked very handsome as a boy. This picture confused me. On the one hand she looked like such an attractive young lad, holding hands with a girl in a pretty dress. They complimented each other. On the other hand I found the fact that my mother was dressed as a guy and looked like one very disconcerting. Years later I found myself in a friend’s dress and wig, looking exactly like my mother. Now here is something I think I should explore one day…

The other one I really liked was a picture of my mom in a volkspele dress. In this picture my mother looked a lot more feminine and girly. In a Voortrekker kind of way, of course! If memory serves, the volkspele dresses are pretty conservative. Biggish gowns made of a fabric that rustled when it moved. Poofed sleeves with lace frills at the elbows. A lace piece is draped over the shoulders and knotted on the breast, creating a triangle at the back. Waists are narrow and the skirts are full of volume due to the petticoats. A big frilly cover up of the body underneath. I loved it, and I loved how feminine my mother looked in it.

And I wanted-wanted-wanted to wear one.

I don’t recall volkspele being big in Paarl. And it was not exactly big in Hoedspruit if I remember correctly. My memories of Volkspele were mainly I think from festivals screened on television where these dances were held.

In my final year in primary school, however, volkspele came to Laerskool Mariepskop!

It was our school’s 50th anniversary. A very big event was planned, a Saturday of celebrations. A big event for a school that was 50 years old and boasted just over 100 students at the time. Ha!

Someone must have felt it important to fuse the old and the new at this event. You know, we cling to our history, our culture and our history. But we are also moving forward into modernity. Looking ahead at the future.

So the two highlights of the day was going to be volkspele and a type of mass gymnastics (very North Korea).
Volkspele! Yes! I was super excited. Most of the boys were pretty grumpy about the idea of dancing around with girls in big dresses on the rugby field. I could not be happier. After three years in a dull primary school I finally got the pudding!

Being so close to these dresses made me really excited. I loved looking at the girls and seeing them all dressed up (we wore khaki shorts and shirts I think, very plain). I would have loved to be able to wear a dress like that too. In public, on the rugby field, and dance with a boy.

I was lucky, some part of this fantasy was realized.

My sister had to do volkspele too. My grandmother dug out my mother’s dress from somewhere in her house and one aunt sent her dress from her school years over. We now had two volkspele dresses in our house. One in pink and one in a powder blue.

I was thrilled. Much more than my sister, for sure. She hated it.

I would sneak to her room and look at the dresses in secret. Touching them sometimes and listening to the rustle. Fantasizing about how it would feel against my skin, how I would look in it and how I would twirl. All very camp.

The celebrations came and went. On a Hoedspruit scale I guess it was massive. In those days at least. We did our volkspele. I loved every moment of it, even though I was not wearing a dress, I did like one of the girls in a dress and I guess that compensated. We did our mass gymnastics routine to loud music, impressing everybody with the number 50 we created on the field at the end.

It was very 80s and it was very small town doing it big! There was a sense of accomplishment, pride and nationalism in the air. It was thick with it…

Every kid got a t-shirt with the school’s logo and the number 50 on it in the school’s colors. It was awful! I think there is a picture somewhere with us three siblings from the day, all wearing our shirts. Yuck!

But I had some sort of consolation prize at home. Something far better than an ugly t-shirt or doing volkspele. In my sister’s closet were two volkspele dresses.

I forget when. Maybe it was later the same year. Maybe it was the next. But one day I was alone at home. The details of how it happened are not clear to me anymore. But all of a sudden I was in my sister’s room, in the blue volkspele dress.

I looked at myself in the mirror and giggled uncomfortably. Under the dress I was not wearing anything. I wanted to feel how the fabric felt against my skin. It was an incredibly sensation. I think I was rushing from excitement. I looked and felt so feminine. So incredibly fine.

There was no boy to take my hand and dance with me. But I was embodying both male and female roles. In the mirror, looking back at me, was a very effeminate girl with a short haircut. Under the layers of petticoats was a boy with a flat chest and penis.

I was excited and scared at the same time. I knew if someone caught me in the dress I would never hear the end of it. And at the same time I wanted someone to see me and tell me I looked lovely!

I knew what I was doing was in the eyes of society ‘wrong’ but to me it felt very comfortable and ‘normal’.

I did not know what to make of any of the feelings. Not then at least. Today I can look back at what I was doing there and analyze it and get meaning, which is cool. But then it was just confusing and exhilarating at the same time.

I do not have the desire to get into a volkspele dress or any dress for that matter anymore. I’ve grown out of the confused mental androgyny of my youth. The fact that I would enjoy wearing skirts has nothing to do with wanting to look feminine. That is just a case of personal style.

It’s funny to think that as a boy, I got dressed up in the female costume of what was a symbol of a proud Afrikaner culture. Then I was confused. Years later, being less confused and knowing who I am, I do not get dressed up anymore. I just get naughty with my boyfriend in the shadow of a proud monument of Afrikaner culture. That lovely phallic piece called: The Afrikaanse Taal Monument.