Yara Baas - Searching for Sugardaddy! (to pay for Amsterdam rent)

Sex, money, and control: empowerment or exploitation?

A hallucinatory performance about money, sex and power—and the question: who's using whom? Yara Baas went searching for a sugar daddy to pay her Amsterdam rent. She turned it into the sold-out theatre show Searching for Sugardaddy! (to pay for Amsterdam rent).

The performance begins with a simple question: who's actually using whom here? Baas explores how women can deploy sexuality as a means of self-determination, whilst questioning whether our desires are truly our own, or shaped by cultural patterns and power structures.

Through distancing techniques, lip-synced dialogues, absurd dances and handheld video footage, tensions become palpable. The audience watches Baas handing out flyers in the financial district, scantily dressed. Actresses communicate as game avatars. Documentary footage shows how real sugar daddies, in exchange for money, were allowed to direct the actresses for two days.

Is this empowerment or exploitation? What's real, what's performed? Baas leaves these questions unanswered. And that's precisely the point.

Credits

Concept, direction and text: Yara Baas

Artistic collaboration: Liselot van der Klift

Performance: Yara Baas, Eva Gebbinck, Kim Boogaard

Final direction: Vincent Rietveld

Visuals: Pensive Vivifier

Dramaturgy: Elise de Leede

Production: Chloe Hameleers, Liselot van der Klift

Camera: Julie Philipse, Oualid Boulaaouali

Editing: Jasper Mol

With thanks to: Alexander de Vree, Fee Oomes

In collaboration with: De Warme Winkel