Schwarze Leute – Reclaiming Memories at Sophiensæle

Schwarze Leute – Reclaiming Memories is a performance by Simone Dede Ayivi & Kompliz*innen, presented on Saturday 28 November 2026 at 19:00 at Sophiensæle (Festsaal), Sophienstraße 18, 10178 Berlin. It runs approximately 1 hour 10 minutes and is performed in German. The performance addresses racism and racist violence, including violence by authorities, within the school system, and in the form of psychological and verbal abuse.

The archival material shown includes racist language, both written and spoken. Soon after the war, Afro-German children were born in postwar Germany: children of white German women and Black US soldiers. Public authorities declared these children a problem and made sure that many of them were placed in children's homes or sent abroad.

To this day, this part of German postwar history has barely been researched. Simone Dede Ayivi & Kompliz*innen investigate institutional racism in the early Federal Republic. Schwarze Leute asks how the history of bureaucratic violence is handled today.

Concept, text and performance are by Simone Dede Ayivi. Sound and music are by Johannes Birlinger, set design by Lani Tran-Duc, costume design by Mariama Sow, set and costume assistance by Luca Plauman, video by Jones Seitz and Fine Freiberg, dramaturgy by Jens Hillje, outside eye by Bahar Meriç, project assistance by Charlotte Rosengarth, technical direction by Lui Marschewski, lighting and special effects by Frieder Miller, press by Sarah Rosenau, and production management by Anna Mareike Holtz & Sandra Klöss (ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro). The production is by Simone Dede Ayivi & Kompliz*innen in co-production with Sophiensæle, funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion and the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF).