Olivia Axel Scheucher was born and raised in Vienna and studied theatre directing at Max Reinhardt Seminar. Olivia Axel writes, directs and performs. Their works deal with the body in the context of different forms of violence from a queer-feminist perspective. FUGUE FOUR : RESPONSE was invited to the Heidelberg Stückemarkt. In June 2023, Olivia Axel’s and Nick Romeo Reimann’s first solo exhibition RAGE IS A GOOD FEELING opened at Kunstverein Baden. In the upcoming season, Olivia Axel will direct Die Wand // Wandbefall at Volkstheater Wien, updating Jelinek‘s 5th Princess drama.

Nick Romeo Reimann was born in Munich and trained as an actor at the Otto Falckenberg School. As a performer, he moves between theatre and visual arts. He has performed at the Müncher Kammerspiele, Volksbühne am Rosa Luxemburg Platz Berlin and Volkstheater Wien, where he worked with artists such as Claudia Bauer, Kay Voges and Alexander Giesche. FUGUE FOUR : RESPONSE was invited to the Heidelberg Stückemarkt. In June 2023, Nick’s and Olivia Axel Scheucher’s first solo exhibition RAGE IS A GOOD FEELING opened at Kunstverein Baden.

Self-exploitation, beads of sweat and the cry for a happy ending: Olivia Axel Scheucher and Nick Romeo Reimann explore their own sexual conditioning in a provocative, humorous and at once intimately vulnerable performance. To what extend does the private realm of sexuality employ the operating modes of capitalism? How does this appropriation influence our self-perception? What would a way out of this sexual regime of images look like? 

FUGUE FOUR : RESPONSE attempts an answer through four stylistic idioms, following the compositional guiding principle of the musical fugue, which in turn unfolds as “phrase – repetition – response – counterpoint.” This principle allows for a choreographic, linguistic and musical cycle of recycling, scrutinising a system in which white, cisgender people are overrepresented. The performance examines mass-culture phenomena from traditional social roles to meticulously practised sexiness. 

Breaking with these aesthetics and conditions, the work calls for alternative notions of the body and, with tools of sensitisation and cooperation, searches for possibilities of overcoming compulsive reproduction.