The Drummies: Pom-poms And Pride

“It’s a combination between cheerleading and a marching band,” explains South African photographer Alice Mann, the author of these arresting images and many others documenting the sport, taken at schools and competitions in the Western Cape and Gauteng Provinces from 2017 onwards. Some 60 of these works, captured in beguiling colour on a medium-format film camera, now feature in Mann’s striking new publication Drummies (as the majorettes are colloquially known), published by Gost Books.

“I had some knowledge of the drum majorettes growing up in Cape Town, but I was very much on the periphery,” the photographer tells Glorious. “They might perform before a sports match, or at this annual carnival we had, but I didn’t know it was a competitive sport.” It was only when she had established her career as a portrait photographer, with a particular focus on what she describes as “how a sense of community reinforces an individual sense of self” – her previous series include depictions of churchgoers in London’s African diaspora, and the fabulously dressed Sapeurs (or dandies) in the Congo – that the sport surfaced in her mind once again. “Suddenly, it made sense as the next point of focus for my work.”

It was this sense of discipline and commitment, and the camaraderie it spawns, that first drew Alice to the sport – as well as the aesthetic appeal of its glitzy uniforms and graceful, synchronised performances. “Drum majorettes is really big in some communities, but it’s not viewed as a mainstream girls’ school sport in South Africa,” she says. “It tends to be more popular outside of the main city centres, and I think that is to do with the fact that it really elevates and empowers the girls who participate in it.”

This is due, in no small part, to the ambition and hard work being a drum majorette entails. The girls practice most days after school, at the weekend and during the holidays, Alice says. “There’s a huge amount of prestige attached to it; it says a lot about you as a person. You’re a hard worker, you’re dedicated, you will most likely do well at school.” Indeed, as The New Yorker’s Anakwa Dwamena points out in his 2018 feature on the Drummies series, “Regional excellence promises future scholarships and tuition subsidies at the high-school level and beyond – or, at the very least, a chance to go on national tours.”

Part of what Alice wanted to achieve with this level of collaboration was a project that truly embodied the aspirational element of being a drummie, she notes. “It represents an alternate reality to the one that exists in some ways, while depicting one that might come to exist as a result of these safe female spaces, where the girls are the sole focus, and have so much energy poured into them and their sport. I think it challenges the view of young South African women as disempowered victims. They look very powerful, strong and confident; that is what the sport, and hopefully this series, has cultivated.”

On Alice’s part, photographing the drum majorettes has galvanised her desire to seek out and photograph the events, activities and occasions that cultivate communities, and create enduring bonds within people’s everyday lives, while continuing to traverse the line between documentary photography and more performative portraiture. “I never tire of seeing how strong people can be and what they can do with that strength. I’m always interested in highlighting that people are truly incredible, even in their everyday pursuits. And it’s equally important for me to show them in a way that they can feel proud of; that’s how they would want to be seen.”