In the beginning there was fire, then came the middle-class family

„Liebe wird oft überbewertet /
Liebe ist nicht so wichtig, wie man denkt /
Liebe ist nur ein Teilaspekt des Lebens /
Und die anderen Teile sind auch nicht schlecht.“
(“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, Christiane Rösinger takes the stage at the Humboldt Forum – with songs and spoken word pieces about love and family ideals. Of course, all turned on their head – as only she can do. She offers comfort to all: couples, singles, and champions of alternative family models alike. Because: romantic love is, after all, often overrated.



The Berlin-based songwriter – creator of unforgettable lines like:

"Ihr denkt, ihr seid im Märchen /
und seid nur blöde Pärchen“
(“You think you're in a fairytale /
but you're just dumb couples”)


–has long suspected: maybe it’s 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 – there was fire.


Perhaps this evening at the Humboldt Forum is an invitation to reflect on the forms of love that already exist – and to imagine what might be possible, if we dared to radically rethink the concept of love.



PARTICIPANTS

• Christiane Rösinger, vocals and lyrics
  
• Martin Gupper, guitar
  
• Elise Mory, keyboard
  
• Franziska Schwarz, bass
  
• Werner Thenmayer, drums
  

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). 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.


- Price: EUR 20.00 / EUR 10.00 reduced
- Language: German
- Location: Hall 2
- Wheelchair accessible