Performance of Julia Friese (Afrique-Europe-Interact), Juliy 2013, Kampnagel-Theatre/Hamburg

From May to August 2013 the artist collective Fasokele from Burkina Faso should have been coming to Germany for a 3-months theatre- and action tour, on the invitation by Afrique-Europe-Interact. But the German embassy in Ouagadougou refused the visa with the argument that the so-called willingness to return would not be guaranteed by the invited artists. In addition the pan-african position was named to be “esotericism”; therefore it was not accepted as evidence for the fact that Fasokele was mainly anchored in Western Africa and had therefore not interest whatsoever in staying in Europe without papers. The performance artist Julia Friese – who is together with Fasokele active in the network Afrique-Europe-Interact – has used these incidents in order to make a 20-minute theatre piece, which has been performed twice at the Kampnagel Theatre in Hamburg in July 2013. Although the play is in German, it is easy to be understood also by people who do not understand the German language.