Christiane Rösinger: "In the beginning there was fire, then came the bourgeois family"
{{ time.start_TS | TS2dateFormat('MMM') }}
{{ time.start_TS | TS2dateFormat('YYYY') }}
| 20 EUR, reduced 10 EUR |
| Ground Floor, Hall 2 |
| Belongs to: Family Matters, Care or Chaos? |
At the heart of Rösinger’s chanson-pop music lies the word. Whether with a band, as a singer-songwriter, or through spoken word, beautiful melodies are wonderful—but there is something to be said. For example, about her lifelong artistic theme: love.
“Love is often overrated /
Love isn’t as important as people think /
Love is just one aspect of life /
And the other parts aren’t bad either.”
Together with her four-piece band from Vienna, Christiane Rösinger will be performing on stage at the Humboldt Forum for the first time – with songs from 1991 onwards and spoken word about love and family ideals. Everything is turned upside down, of course – just as we have come to expect from her. And she reassures everyone: couples, singles, and advocates of alternative family models. Because romantic love is often overrated anyway. The Berlin songwriter – creator of immortal lines such as:
“You think you’re in a fairytale /
but you’re just dumb couples.” –
has long suspected that it might be better to live alone. Or at least differently—beyond the traditional nuclear family.
Before the nuclear family comes the couple. And before the bourgeois nuclear family comes fire.
This evening at the Humboldt Forum is an invitation to remember what patterns of love already exist—and what might be possible if we radically rethink the idea of love.
Participants
Christiane Rösinger grew up in Baden and moved to West Berlin in 1985, where in 1988 she founded the Lassie Singers together with Almut Klotz and Funny van Dannen. Together with Klotz, she also ran the label Flittchen Records and the legendary Flittchen Bar at Maria am Ostbahnhof.
After the Lassie Singers disbanded in the late 1990s, Rösinger founded the band Britta with Britta Neander and Julia Miess, releasing four studio albums. Her first solo album, Songs of L. and Hate, appeared in 2010, followed by Lieder ohne Leiden (2017).
Rösinger is the author of numerous books, most recently Zukunft machen wir später. Meine Deutschstunden mit Geflüchteten (2017, Fischer). She writes for various newspapers and magazines and, since 2010, has curated the event series Flittchenbar im Südblock.
In 2019, her musical on housing politics, Stadt unter Einfluss, premiered at Hebbel am Ufer, followed two years later at the same venue by her feminist song-play Planet Egalia. In 2023, with Die große Klassenrevue, Rösinger interrogated contemporary class relations, again at Berlin’s HAU. The piece opened the Impulse Festival in Cologne in 2024 and was nominated for the Theatertreffen 2024.
2010 nominated for the Echo Critics’ Award
2021 Rio Reiser Prize of the Berlin Senate
2025 Satire Prize Göttinger Elch for outstanding achievements in music, literature, and social critique
Christiane Rösinger lives and works in Berlin.