Draagkracht KETURUNAN / Cheroney Pelupessy

This performance is about her. About the women from Indonesia, the Moluccas and the former Dutch East Indies who carried history without history mentioning them by name. Women whose stories have been deliberately kept out of history books for generations.

There was the woman who remained silent. Who stayed behind when the world around her shifted. Who kept the family together, day after day, without anyone asking how hard it was. Who learned to be silent because silence was sometimes the only space she had, and who, in that silence, preserved something that could not be lost. What she carried was not always named, but it had an effect.

There was the woman who fought. Who organized, demanded, refused to disappear. Who carried weapons, spied, infiltrated. Who risked her life for a world that did not yet acknowledge her. Who was caught and remained silent. Even then.

There was the woman who fought with her words. Who wrote, taught, opened doors that were closed to her. Who worked on the system from within, with patience and conviction. All three carried. All three deserved more than they received.

Draagkracht shows what words cannot say. The weight of everything that has been passed on from generation to generation, without a word ever being devoted to it.

The stage on which these women are truly central has barely existed for a long time. Draagkracht fills that space.

You do not need to know history to recognize it.