Bekenntnisse. Performance. Frankfurt am Main, Mousonturm, 2012

In the 5th century, Saint Augustine attacked the theatre for stirring up false passions and seducing the spectator with dramatic delusions and illusions in his Confessions. However, Augustine simultaneously mentions these forbidden passions in his book as fascinating properties of conversion. In Klüsener / Neininger’s piece, the performers confess to their sins and begin a game with the voyeuristic desires of the audience, finally linking it to the promise of authenticity made by the advent of today’s reality television and prevalence of amateurs on stage. This promise questions the performance and confronts Augustine’s Confessions with game structures and scores. The presence of the corporeal, as evident in the works of Marina Abramovic or in Hermann Nitsch’s Orgies-Mysteries Theatre, here becomes an object of confession and cooking. Ferdinand Klüsener’s graduation piece takes an ironic look at the sensationalism of scandal and at the same time, deliberately takes an opposite stance. The performers deliciously play with the voyeurism of the audience and with the framework of ‘performance’.