Unauthorized und Unverschämt

Simone Dede Ayivi's performances explore 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. Through the use of recorded discussions, interviews and political speeches, she seeks to amplify the voices of marginalised communities. With Afrofuturistic narratives, she creates a space in the theatre to ponder, translate and reinvent. A space for utopias.

Simone reveals her research methods and the means of theatre, allowing the audience to become part of her content-related and aesthetic search process. The construction of images is also thematised and viewing habits are questioned. Together with her accomplices, 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 the Schauspielhaus Graz and the Oberhausen Theatre, among others.

Simone studied Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice at the University of Hildesheim. She is one of the authors of ‘Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum’ and has published in various anthologies. She also writes for Zeit Online, Tagesspiegel, Missy Magazin and taz, among others. Ayivi is involved with ISD - Initiative of Black People in Germany and is on the board of Lause Lebt e.V.

After training as a carpenter, Mirjam Alom Pleines studied stage and costume design at the Weißensee Academy of Art. She was a scholarship holder of the Hans Böckler Foundation. Until the end of the 2021/2022 season, she worked as an assistant set designer at the Münchner Kammerspiele. She has worked as a freelance costume and set designer at the Münchner Kammerspiele, the Burgtheater and the Sophiensaele, among others. She has worked as a set and costume designer in various film and music video productions. She is a graduate of the 34th script workshop at the HFF Munich, her book ‘dieses ohrenbetäubende Schweigen’ was nominated for the Tankred Dorst Prize.

Jones Seitz is a trained media designer for image and sound (SWR Baden-Baden) and studied Applied Theatre Studies at the Justus-Liebig University in Gießen and the Universidade do Porto. In addition to their own artistic research on the political in interstices/spaces, Jones is responsible for the lighting and video design of independent projects, e.g. for Simone Dede Ayivi, Hyunsin Kim, Anne Welenc and Jakob&Schleiff. Jones was a co-founder of the group LUKAS UND, which produced its own stage plays at FFT Düsseldorf until 2019. In 2018/2019, Jones founded the FLINTA-Netzwerk Gefährliche Arbeit e.V. together with Rosa Wernecke. From 2013 to 2016, Jones lived in Joinville, Brazil, and since 2017 mainly in Berlin.

Johannes Birlinger (‘he’) is a sound designer, composer and music producer. He works primarily for theatre, dance and performance productions, both in the independent scene and at various theatres. Johannes also writes music for films and works as a sound engineer and live musician. He experiments with different styles of music, field recordings and interviews, and likes to think about unusual spaces, sound reproduction and surround sound. Johannes lives in Berlin and Helsinki.

Frieder Miller studied contemporary puppetry at the HfS ‘Ernst Busch’ Berlin from 2010 to 2014. Since completing her studies, she has realised various independent theatre works together with her theatre collective manufaktor. In the independent theatre scene, she has collaborated with Swoosh Lieu, Tucké Royale and armada of arts, among others. In addition to her theatre work, she often works as a light operator in Berlin clubs at night. Since 2015, she has been working at various festivals, the Holzmarkt Berlin and the CCC setting up lighting and providing technical lighting support for various theatre works. She is part of the collective Berliner Ringtheater and the queer-feminist network gefährliche Arbeit. She was selected for the fellowship programme of the Academy for Digitality and Theatre Dortmund 2022.

Charlotte Rosengarth works for art projects in the fields of visual and performing arts. She studied architecture in Hanover, cultural studies and aesthetic practice in Hildesheim and, since 2022, cultural and media management in Berlin. Her goal is to get to know and apply the different facets and levels of art production. She has worked for art associations, collectives and artists in an organisational, curatorial, artistic or managerial capacity. Among others for the Kunstverein Hildesheim, the Guerilla Architects, Alicia Agustín and Simone Dede Ayivi.

Sarah Rosenau is an author and PR manager. Since her training at Kampnagel in Hamburg, she has been advising and supporting artists, festivals, institutions and NGOs in communication issues, editing websites and other publications. Her clients include Acud Macht Neu, Construct Lab, copy & waste, Guerilla Architects, Heroines of Sound, ID Festival, Radialsystem, RomaTrial e.V., Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Foundation EVZ. She has been Communication Director of the English Theatre Berlin since 2012 and is responsible for press and public relations at the theatre in the Delphi.

ehrliche arbeit - freies Kulturbüro (honest work - independent cultural office) is a production office for the independent performing arts and has been a platform and infrastructure for independent projects since 2006. The cultural office combines concept and project development with project management and production management, dramaturgy, press and public relations work, curation, editing, text work and translations.
ehrliche arbeit works in Berlin and internationally with individual artists, temporary project groups, permanent ensembles, collectives, institutions, festivals and programme series. ehrliche arbeit is a collective - without hierarchies, without salary levels. ehrliche arbeit - freies Kulturbüro are Anka Belz, Janina Benduski, Anna Mareike Holtz, Nina Klöckner, Sandra Klöss, Torsten Klöss, Andrea Oberfeld, Elena Polzer, Ilka Rümke, Leoni Grützmacher and Anna Wille.