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  • Theatre
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  • NL premiere

Wasted Land

Ntando Cele
Date
Thu May 22 at 21:00
Duration
65 min.
Language
English with Dutch subtitles
Country
South Africa / Switzerland
Price
€27,50 / €19,-
+ € 0,25 per transaction
Edition
SPRING 2025
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This performance has audio description.

In the opening performance of SPRING 2025, Ntando Cele returns, following the success of SPAfrica with Julian Hetzel, with a bold and unconventional performance, full of music, energy and irony. She explores the pitfalls of sustainability and the greenwashing of the Global North. What does a future look like where black people aren’t continuously excluded from the human narrative? What if we fully embrace societal transformation and confront injustice head-on? Performers from different parts of the Global South give voice to this urgent issue.

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In her work, Ntando Cele has used theatrical tools – through play, humor, music, or simple situations – to expose how racism operates in society today. As a South African artist living and working in a Western context, she has until now resisted making work about the ecological crisis. The conflict between collective and personal responsibility seemed insurmountable to her.

However, Cele couldn’t ignore how few non-Western voices are being heard on this issue in Western Europe. Climate change and ecology are being led by white institutions and figures like Greta Thunberg. Too often, the commitments made are trapped in theoretical debates without tangible solutions.

If the Earth truly belongs to all of its inhabitants, then all people should have a voice in how we contribute, whether consciously or unconsciously, to “Gaia.” Wasted Land gives Cele the opportunity to unpack her own perception of the climate crisis and what it provokes in her, as a colonized body living with the generational consequences of inequality.

If asked for her opinion, Cele would say: what does a future without black and brown people – continually excluded from the discourse on humanity – look like? What if societies recognized and accepted a genuine social transformation, where all forms of injustice were immediately corrected? Along the way, she sarcastically injects a little humor into the despair and extinction rhetoric that often surrounds ecological discourse.

In Wasted Land, Cele explores fast fashion as a manifestation of contemporary colonialism. This fast fashion connects Western consumerism with developing countries, where low-cost production results in a waste mountain of discarded clothing sent back.

Wasted Land is a melodic landscape between theatrical performance, video projection, and a poetic concert. A post-apocalyptic satire inspired by decolonial protest songs, which Cele reinterprets together with Egyptian musician and composer Wael Sami Elkholy and three vocalists.

This performance has audio description.

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Artist

Ntando Cele

Credits

Concept and direction Ntando Cele

With Ntando Cele, Brandy Butler, Françoise Gautier, Steffi Lobréau

Composition and musical direction Wael Sami Elkholy
Beats by Soukey

Costume Rudolf Jost

Artistic and technical collaboration Sandro Griesser

Collaboration in dramaturgy Raphael Urweider, Davide-Christelle Sanvee

Assistant director Joëlle Antonie Gbeassor

Sound Janyves Coïc

Lighting Demian Jakob

Video Janosch Abel, Nicolas Gerlier

Set building, props and costume workshop Ateliers du Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne

Stage management Nelly Chauvet

Lighting management Cassandre Colliard

Video management Victor Hunziker

Production Judith Martin, Marion Caillaud

Booking Elizabeth Gay

Production Manaka Empowerment Prod. Nina Sautter

Production Manaka Empowerment Prod., Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne

Coproduction DE SINGEL, Bonlieu, scène nationale Annecy, Maison Saint-Gervais – Genève, LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, Festival NEXT, Dampfzentrale Bern

With the support of Expédition Suisse, Kultur Stadt Bern, Swisslos – Kultur Kanton Bern, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Pro Helvetia, Corodis, Loterie romande, Burgergemeinde Bern, Fonds de dotation Porosus, Migros-Kulturprozen, Landis & Gyr Stiftung Stiftung, Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung

In collaboration with Residenz Schauspiel Leipzig

Many thanks to Isabel Gygax, Ueli Kempter, Patricia Kafwamba Oguey, Payal Parekh

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