«Theatre is a weapon». Le lotte teatrali contro le diseguaglianze razziali di salute nel Sudafrica del postapartheid tra Aids e Covid-19

Abstract

South Africa represents an exemplary case of institutional racism in recent contemporary history. Apartheid was achieved through a segregative urban planning that defined the spaces according to racial criteria determined by a complex legislative corpus.

The population classified as “non-white" was relegated to townships: overpopulated ghettos located in the urban suburbs or near industrial and mining centers, lacking facilities, infrastructures and often polluted (especially in mining areas). When the political apartheid ended in 1994, the urban structure remained, perpetuating the marginalization and the environmental and health inequalities, which explode in post-apartheid during the Aids epidemic and, more recently the Covid19 crisis.

The article addresses, from the perspective of Performance Studies, the struggles of artists towards environmental and health racism in the postpartheid era, focusing on the political role that theatre has played in the fight against HIV and the decolonization of medical practices. Retracing the changes of approach of the last decades, the essay concludes by addressing the artistic reaction to health and economic crisis caused by Covid19. The position of contemporary artists is closely linked to the historical anti-apartheid resistance, in an exhausting, and sometimes conflictual, confrontation.