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GMGS_What the hell is happiness?

Performance
by Codice Ivan (Anna Destefanis, Leonardo Mazzi, Benno Steinegger)
2011–2012

A performer kneels in a spotlight on a dark stage, among handwritten signs and a projected drawing

Give Me Money, Give Me Sex_What the hell is happiness?: Codice Ivan's second stage piece, on happiness and the obsessive search for it in modern life.

“There is only one inborn erroneous notion ... that we exist in order to be happy.”

A. Schopenhauer

GMGS was born from the need to measure ourselves against the wheels of modern life and its often obsessive search: happiness. Everybody struggles to reach it without knowing where to go or how to get there. The only certainty is that we have been dismissed, or have dismissed ourselves, from a perfect world, and that every human action does as much harm as good. So we ask: how should we live?

The piece was preceded by five studies and premiered at Drodesera in 2011. It then toured Italian festivals and theatres, and abroad to Beijing, Ghent, Strasbourg and Nyon.

A performer stands on a dark stage among large handwritten signs; one reads “Vivere o morire”

Presented at

2011Drodesera, Dro (I) · Premiere
2012Santarcangelo 12, Santarcangelo di Romagna (I) · Performance
2012Nuova Scena Toscana 2012, Teatro Fabbrichino, Prato (I) · Performance
On tourBeijing Fringe Festival (China) · Performance
On tourVooruit, Ghent (B) · Performance
On tourAterteater, Festival Internazionale di teatro Val Badia (I) · Performance
On tourShort Theatre, Teatro India, Rome (I) · Performance
On tourZoom, Teatro Studio, Florence (I) · Performance
On tourZona K, Milan (I) · Performance
On tourIs It My Word? #5, SpazioK, Prato (I) · Performance
On tourFestival Fast Forward (D) · Performance
On tourFestival Premieres, Strasbourg (F) · Performance
On tourFestival FAR°, Nyon (CH) · Performance