Sophiensaele Berlin, 2024
photo by Mayra Walraff
“Towards the end of this wonderfully clever and bitterly angry evening, the artist lets her personal hopes go up in flames. […] ‘Autsch’ is not a resigned piece. Quite the opposite.” Patrick Wildermann, Tagesspiegel, 6.12.2024
Capitalism, climate crisis, pandemic – or maybe it’s the menopause? Simone Dede Ayivi is going through a bad time. What the precise reason for this might be, whether yoga might help and who actually profits from our individual and societal crises is what she plans to find out together with the audience throughout the evening – because the disappearance of our own sense of well-being is probably the biggest unsolved criminal case of many people’s lives. So her performance is set in a slightly run-down detective agency and takes the form of a true crime story: from an infestation of pests in her apartment to the cuts to the cultural sector, Ayivi works outwards from her personal experience to reach a systemic social level of people – particularly those in marginalised groups – living in precarious situations. In this entertaining detective story with live piano accompaniment, she steps up to expose structural grievances and to move issues of personal happiness and managing everyday life away from personal and into public discourse. She is also able to contrast the general misery with a cautious view of the future that draws strength from coming together and delights us with a particularly heartwarming finale.
Credits:
Concept, Text, Performance: Simone Dede Ayivi
Stage Design: Luca Maria Plauman
Costume Design: Mariama Sow
Video: Jones Seitz
Sound Design, Musik: Johannes Birlinger
Lighting Design, Pyrotechnic Effects, Technical Direction: Frieder Miller
Project Collaborator: Charlotte Rosengarth
Outside Eye: Bahar Meriç
Dramaturgical Collaborator, Social Media: Fabian Pareigis
Design Assistant: Hütchen
Production Management: ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro
Technical Production: Gefährliche Arbeit
Press: Sarah Rosenau