DELPHIN oder IM FREIBAD MEINER GEFÜHLE

I swim – and I should have done a course yesterday. OR: Two dolphins, a sunset, zero kitsch, but when it comes to abstract objects, the learning rate is lower than that of pigeons and rats. OR: We move to the recreational area. Into the pool of embarrassment, onto the diving board, deep into prejudice. We bathe in humiliation and embarrass ourselves as we plunge into roaring shame. When we sink into self-consciousness, accompanied by the steady drip of taboos on all our inferiorities, we end up basking with pleasure in our most radiant complexes.

undBorisundSteffi are for all lovers, self-proclaimed maths artists, former tennis pros, their children and fans. Their work deals with the juxtaposition of the banal and the existential. It is about playing with expectations, about the contradictory, about ambiguity and ambivalence, paradox, inconsistency, contrast, discrepancy. It’s about kitsch – trivial, banal, sentimental. And about trash. At the centre are her own texts, which form a contradictory yet complementary combination of form and content between short stories, personal blog entries, songs, lyrical associations and improvised welcome speeches. 

In 2016, Charlotte Kath, Sandra Reitmayer and Lisa Birke Balzer founded the theatre and performance collective undBorisundSteffi in Bochum. They studied together at the Folkwang University of the Arts and are directors, authors and composers of the texts and songs as well as performers in the development of the pieces. Currently, undBorisundSteffi receive conceptual support from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The collective’s work has already received numerous awards, including the Folkwang Prize, the Cologne Theatre Prize and the Petra Meurer Prize. For asphalt 2021, Boris and Steffi devised and performed the world premiere of “AMORE. Tent stories in camping jargon. Perhaps suitable as a headline. Not as a song.”

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