Simone Dede Ayivi & Kompliz*innen:
Es mal besser haben...
Es mal besser haben...
THE AUDIO INSTALLATION IS SUBSEQUENTLY AVAILABLE IN THE SOPHIENSÆLE MEDIA LIBRARY.
The online audiovisual installation Es mal besser haben... is dedicated to family narratives, generational conflicts, political struggles, and visions of the future in families of immigrant heritage.
The author and theater maker Simone Dede Ayivi has invited five accomplices to talk about parenthood and childhood in a migration society from the perspective of the second generation of immigrants and to share childhood experiences and youth memories with each other. The common starting point is the sentence: "We came to this country so that you could have it better than we did." Yet the stories themselves are very different: the families come from different countries and contexts to work, had to flee their homes, or followed a great love. They grew up in chic suburbs or in refugee shelters.
The six adults talk about growing up with racism, the hopes and aspirations of their parents for whom they translated, and the political work they do as artists, psychologists, anti-fascist activists, or migration researchers for future generations. What did their parents associate with the idea of a good life in Germany and what does that mean for them? What did and does the first generation fight for, what did they build here and what does the second generation want to fight for and change in this country? While the issues and experiences negotiated are often painful, coming together, sharing and making visible is a redemptive and empowering process. Shared suffering, after all, is not just half suffering, but the beginning of change.
On Es mal besser haben..., these voices from different communities are brought together in interview-based audio tracks, accompanied by short videos. Visitors to the website can playfully move through the space and are invited to select individual thematic chapters and follow conversations according to their interests. The online installation is based on the live installation The Kids Are Alright, which premiered at the Sophiensaele in 2020, and will start at 0:00 on February 21, 2022. As an accompaniment, The Kids Are Alright can be seen again at the Theater im Pavillon Hannover from 24-25.02.2022.
CONCEPT Simone Dede Ayivi SPACE Theresa Reiwer DRAMATURGY Selma Böhmelmann SOUND, MUSIC Katharina Pelosi VIDEO Jones Seitz CAMERA OUTDOOR FOOTAGE Thomas Machholz GRAPHIC Lena Rossbach WEB DEVELOPMENT Niklas Jurij Plessing INTERLOCUTORS Fatma Kar, Dan Thy Nguyen, Kadir Özdemir, Nabila und Lenssa PRODUCTION ehrliche arbeit - freies Kulturbüro PRESS, PR Sarah Rosenau THANKS TO Katharina, Kira, Eric, Caetano, Mariana, Oscar, Cynthia, Tahir, Rosana, Queila, Leonardo, Sandra, Fabi, Idir, Hoowaida, Estevão, Aiko, Bibiana und Ruby
A production by Simone Dede Ayivi and Kompliz*innen. Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR. In cooperation with SOPHIENSÆLE Berlin, Impulse Theater Festival and Theater im Pavillon Hannover. Mediapartner: taz.die tageszeitung
Simone Dede Ayivi's performances discuss questions of representation, resistance and community. Her works are biographically motivated, mostly interview-based research projects. She explores ways of remembering and rediscovering - and shines a spotlight on political struggles and movements, Black history and the present. Using recorded discussions, interviews and political speeches, she seeks to amplify the voices of marginalized communities. With Afrofuturistic narratives, she creates a space in the theater to ponder, translate and reinvent. A space for utopias. Simone reveals her research methods and the means of theater, allowing the audience to become part of her content-related and aesthetic search process. The construction of images is also addressed and viewing habits are questioned. Together with her Kompliz*innen, she has developed performances in cooperation with the Sophiensaele, the Pavillon Hannover, the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt and the Festival Theaterformen. She has worked as a director at Schauspielhaus Graz, Theater Oberhausen and Deutsches Theater Berlin, among others. In 2022, Simone Dede Ayivi received the Tabori Award from the Fonds Darstellende Künste.