Kölner Stadtanzeiger

by Nicole Strecker

Fighting with Clothes

Nothing welds us more together then an external enemy, this is valid for politics as well as for our private life. Back to back against the enemy- that's the way the couple fights in Britta Lieberknecht's danceperformance „Touch and Tear“. The enemy: the couple's clothing. With teamwork one rips shirt and pants off the body, testing the cotton to the limit- instead of the relationship?-and rebells against the resistance of the fabric with the naked skin. In times of inflationary eroticism in the media also intimacy is simply a question of successful or insuccessful staging, the act of making love often staged as ingenuine gymnastics- but when one rips the clothes off the body it can look pretty unsexy. A jeans does not want to tear, even if dancer I-Fen Lin hangs on the back pocket of her partner Olaf Reinecke with both hands. Lieberknecht and her two convincing performers skillfully keep the balance between mocking comment and serious sensuousness and exploit the crazy idea gaining an astonishing spectrum of emotional ambivalence.

Theaterzeitung akt.7

by Christina Maria-Purkert

Soundtrack made from fabric
„Touch and Tear“ by Britta Lieberknecht in the Old Firehouse

„Touch and Tear“- rarely the title of a danceprogramme tells the audience so precisely what to expect. In this danceperformance of choreographer Britta Lieberknecht the aching of the streched fabric, the discrete „Ritsch“ of the T-shirt and the louder „Ratsch“ of the Jeans is already the whole soundtrack of the piece- besides the clapping and frictionizing sound of the naked skin and the high-low scale of the breath of two people in action. The slow prelude in complete silence builds up suspense- excited to tearing one sits there, does not dare to move while Olaf Reinecke and I-Fen Lin completely silent, probably on a silk string, pull two chairs of three from one side of the stage to the other. The wooden chairs wear dresses, one a long sleeve T-shirt, the other a white bustier on the back and the fitting slip on the seat.

But after theri first appearance the chairs become less important. Not to their skin the performers are going but to each others. Though it takes more than half the show until they arrive there. First comes the touching, sometimes pulling the T-shirt of the woman, sometimes touching her. A figure with big belly evolves reminding of pregnacy. A bit more of pulling, and -.ratsch – the T-shirt transforms and can be used with its rest as a chord for playing horsy. Playfully and lustfully accompanied by fighting spirits but without any motif of the old genderifghts common in dancetheatre Olaf Reinecke and I-Fen Lin test their costumes to the limit.

Nothing can resist the grabbing choreography. The ratschsound of the tearing material stay in mind for long after the performance. In „Touch and Tear“ every touch, every piece of fabric become a metaphor for small powergames, for playfulness and competition without them a vital loverelationship cannot exist. But when all fabric finally is torn and both are bare of protection they become careful. Embracing each other they hide their nakedness more than presenting it. Finally I-Fen Lin gets up and fits herself into red dessous, which are worn by a chair, without removing the dessous from the chair. This way nearly grown to the chair in a long solo she explores the limits of her movements. Bizarre and poetic imagery evolves when the chairwoman-figure rises in slow motion or crawls on her fours while four wooden legs seem to grow out of her back. Already this Solo is worth watching the performance. It is the treasure of the evening. What does not mean that not every minute before wasn't worth it. Touched and not torn one leaves the the theatre.”