As part of the “Never Work – International Performance Festival”, the Sophiensaele presents the German premiere of BULLYACHE’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” on 26 and 27 June 2026. This darkly satirical dance theatre piece sees the London-based duo combine live music, choreography and theatrical spectacle to examine financial capitalism, power structures and toxic masculinity through the lens of an office party at the end of the world.
Image above: © Andrea Avezzù, Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
A pop-cultural collision of working-class and queer expression: the duo BULLYACHE draws on vocabulary from the circus, ballet, acrobatics, pop and TikTok to create a highly idiosyncratic take on contemporary dance theatre. “We are Pina Bausch dressed up as Dua Lipa, performing albums as plays,” say Courtney Deyn and Jacob Samuel of themselves.
Their latest work, A Good Man is Hard to Find, premiered at the Venice Biennale and is inspired by the 2008 financial crisis and the Cremation of Care ceremony – an annual ritual of the private Bohemian Grove club, in which members of the global elite symbolically bury their consciences. The precise choreography explores the absurd world of financial capitalism, management and its power games, hierarchies, toxic masculinity, humiliations, austerity and scapegoating mechanisms. In a bleak, fucked-up scenario, an office party unfolds at the end of the world: new songs by the duo are intercut with Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in C minor – and elitist bankers act out their emotional devastation with no regard for the consequences, ultimately culminating in a dramatic sacrificial ritual befitting a Greek tragedy.
BULLYACHE is a London-based artist duo founded in 2021 by Courtney Deyn and Jacob Samuel. They choreograph, direct and compose their own works, which combine live music, precise choreography and theatrical spectacle.
Their latest work, A Good Man is Hard to Find, premiered at the Venice Biennale. The precise choreography explores the absurd world of financial capitalism, management and its power games, hierarchies, toxic masculinity, humiliation, austerity and scapegoating mechanisms.
WHEN?
Friday, 26 June 2026, 9 pm (Artist talk following the performance)
Saturday, 27 June 2026, 9 pm
WHERE?
Sophiensæle
Sophienstr. 18
10178 Berlin
COSTS?
