SPAfrica

"Ntando Cele deceptively slips into the skin of theatre-maker Julian Hetzel as a white, socially engaged artist,escaping expectations that are inevitably projected onto the black skin colour of a protesting performer from Durban."
- De Volkskrant ★★★★
 

Mine your trauma. 

SPAfrica is a solo performance about empathy and extractivism, exploring how closely racism is linked to capitalism. Together with South African-Swiss performer Ntando Cele, Julian Hetzel explores the limits of empathy - the ability to understand or feel what another is experiencing. What if empathy does not eliminate or change existing power structures and privileges, but is a tool that reinforces them?  

Through water and tears as conflict materials and metaphors for the extraction of natural and emotional resources, the performance builds on the transaction of these sustainable resources between Europe and Africa - water for tears and tears for water. On the one hand, Sub-Saharan drinking water is imported into Europe: SPAfrica – the world's first empathy drink. On the other hand, tears are extracted in the heart of Europe and transferred to the origin of water in Africa.  

A hybrid experience combining theatre, music and video, as well as an invitation to think critically about extractivism and commodity fetishism. 

In English / duration: 90 minuten