Sophiensaele Berlin. 2025.
photo by Mayra Wallraff
The situation is not unexpected, yet it remains incomprehensible. We have always made such an effort to understand everything and to make ourselves understood. We have expanded our multilingualism or – for better understanding – discarded it. We have studied your books and eaten asparagus with you. And we have told you about our grandparents’ fig trees.
We have written books and taken to the stage. We have become migration researchers and diversity agents. And now we stand here speechless. Perhaps we have run out of words. Translating in the Afro shop and at the immigration office. Perhaps your words simply became too empty for us. Like the promises we made to ourselves. And now we ask ourselves: Was it a misunderstanding, a translation error, or did we talk past each other from the very beginning?
Hä?! is an evening about understanding and misunderstanding in a migrant society and the question of how we can hold on to all the achievements of recent years despite the shift to the right and the backlashes. We dare to take a self-critical look at our concepts of diversity, while at the same time doing everything we can to ensure that many can stay and even more can join us. Above all, we should agree on how we got here, what exactly happened and who this ‘we’ is that we keep talking about. There is a lot to clarify. Before we are lost for words or They will silence us.
Credits:
Concept, Text, Performance: Simone Dede Ayivi // Video: Jones Seitz // Stage: Lea Steinhilber // Costumes: Mariama Sow // Music & Sounddesign: Johannes Birlinger // Lights & Technical Direction: Lou Oelrich // Dramaturge: Veronika Gerhard // Artistic Collaboration: Clara Tucholski // Project Collaboration: Christine Daniels // Production: ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro // Accessibility: Aiden Riebensahm