Beautysalon

For generations, Black people have been meeting in beauty salons to get their hair done, buy hair products and talk about past and current events. In Beautysalon, four Black people gather in a barbershop and transform it into a safer space, a news spot, a political platform and a place to get advice and escape racism. While new hairstyles are being done, stories about Black Switzerland that are close to their hearts are told freely. This is their space, these are their stories, and the audience is warmly invited to listen.

“Beautysalon” is a dance theater piece produced by a team with a majority of Black members that focuses on the diversity, beauty and experiences of the Black community. Inspired by the cultural significance of beauty salons as safer spaces, the piece tells stories of identity, empowerment and resistance, embedded in an interdisciplinary stage format.

The piece addresses topics such as microaggressions, cultural appropriation and the deconstruction of beauty standards. It offers a counter-narrative to the prevailing Eurocentric beauty ideals and highlights Afrocentric perspectives.

With: Baba Altenburger, Steffi Lobréau, Doris Niragire Nirere, Martha Mutapay

Flyer

Premiere: February 13, 2025, 8:00 p.m., Dampfzentrale Bern, with photo carousel, from 9:00 p.m. premiere party with DJ AfroLotus

Dampfzentrale Bern

Further performances will follow in 2026.

The Beauty Salon project is about a black reality: for many people in Switzerland, institutional racism is part of everyday life. Contrary to the common belief that Switzerland has no colonial past because it never had any colonies of its own, Swiss people played an important role as financiers, but also as scientists and traders. Accordingly, Switzerland is still characterized by colonial patterns of thought and behavior.

Children are told racist stories by their parents and caregivers, such as George Salami travels to Chocolate Land. Many families and friends play racist games like White Peter. There are also racist school materials in use. One example is the wall painting in the Wylergut school building with an alphabet that includes representations of animals and their respective initial letters. Three letters (C, I and N) are not associated with animals, but with the stereotyping of non-white people. People of Color also face barriers in accessing public services, the labor market and the housing market. Beautysalon aims to address this systematic racism and calls for a Swiss society that reflects reality.

On stage, different ways of dealing with this reality within the Black community are explored. A 90-minute performance will take place in a Black Beauty Salon. Black beauty salons and barbershops are sacred and healing places for Black people. They are a kind of safe space, a news spot, a political platform and even a place for confession, preaching, counseling, relaxation and escape from racism. On this day, four Black people gather in a Black beauty salon. While new hairstyles are being done, stories about Switzerland that are close to their hearts are told freely. This is their space, these are their stories, and the audience is warmly invited to listen.

Black Beautysalons are places of beauty making, exchanging views and truth telling. For generations, Black people have gathered in barbershops and salons to do their hair, to buy hair products, and to talk about past and current events. In Beautysalon, Black people use the barbershop as their political platform to discuss what is trending in Switzerland of which the politics of Black hair is highly emotive. Curls come with baggage. The barbers and customers discuss with a smile, that is their style. Racism wants to make them suffer, to destroy their style. They argue and smile at the same time.

I like my Afro Soft and Bright. Je kiffe mon Afro. I like my Breads Long and Colorful. Molayi langi ebele Ebele

I like my Afro Soft and Bright. Je kiffe mon Afro. I like my Breads Long and Colorful. Molayi langi ebele Ebele

I like my Afro Soft and Bright. Je kiffe mon Afro. I like my Breads Long and Colorful. Molayi langi ebele

I like my Afro Soft and Bright. Je kiffe mon Afro. I like my Breads Long and Colorful. Molayi langi ebele Ebele

I like my Afro Soft and Bright. Je kiffe mon Afro. I like my Breads Long and Colorful. Molayi langi ebele Ebele

I enter the performance space at Dampfzentrale, where the dancers are warming up for the dress rehearsal, people are testing sound and light, and cameras are being set up. Voices in Bernese German, Lingala, Graubünden German, Portuguese, French and English echo through the room. “Workshop participants who are not on stage as performers today were able to report to open positions next to the stage – so they can still be part of the Beauty Salon,” says Luisa Wolf, the play's dramaturge.

RaBe Interview

The Theatre house Dampfzentrale Bern is showing the piece “Beautysalon” by Mohamed Wa Baile. Journalists David Fürst and Sarah Heinzmann were at the dress rehearsal.

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