Ann Liv Young (US) Sleeping Beauty

25% performance 25% pop 25% feminism 25% therapy

There are not many roles that Ann Liv Young hasn’t tried her hand at on stage as a performer. While it’s not always explicit, sometimes it is. Including sex with fellow performers. She also likes to involve the audience in her works, which she sets with relish somewhere between prose and provocation, pop and porn. One thing that she does try to avoid is letting the audience feel too comfortable when she goes about delving deep into gender roles and stereotypes.
That all changes in the first two parts of her new piece “Sleeping Beauty”, in which Ann Liv Young gently and playfully focuses on a figure from the world of fairy-tales, investigating why Sleeping Beauty comes across as so two-dimensional and passive in conventional stories. It’s not until parts three and four, that are premièring at steirischer herbst, that she steps up the pace, introducing into her ambivalent trashy universe Mary, a completely new persona. And a devilishly evil one to boot.
As such, she is the exact opposite of another of the performer’s incarnations – Sherry, a southerner with a broad accent and blonde perm who has somehow made it her job to make the world a bit healthier with her therapeutic methods. Sherry held surgery briefly at steirischer herbst in 2011, and this time – thanks to her worldwide, stage-busting success in the meantime – she is bringing a whole therapy truck with her. She will be touring Styria, serving her guests pink caffè lattes, offering manicures and pedicures along with individual and couple “Sherrapies”.

Sherry Truck
One Night Stands with Ann Liv Young