BOTIN – Four sold-out evenings, almost 100 unsent messages and a brilliant archive of emotions
It’s done: our current production BOTIN – The performative archive for unsent messages is now (very successfully) behind us! Four evenings, four sold-out shows (plus a waiting list) – and countless unsent messages that have finally found a place and their well-deserved appearance.
Fiery letters of anger, wistful complaints, angry letters to the editor – messages of all kinds arrived in our letterboxes, both digitally and in analogue form. In the large sorting hall in the old auction hall at Cologne’s wholesale market – between mountains of rubbish and forklift trucks – our hard-working archivists sorted them into categories. ‘Problem too big for one person’, ‘Late realisation/regret’, ‘Don’t you have any other problems’, “Arsehole” or ‘To my ex’ were just some of the compartments in which the almost forgotten messages finally ended up.
But only after they finally got their big stage and were delivered to the audience, our proxy recipients, in the form of music, dance and drama. BOTIN made visible and audible what often remains hidden: vulnerability, anger, longing and unspoken words.
At the beginning, however, visitors had to take action themselves: with their most recently sent text messages in tow, they made their way through the rooms of the Old Auction Hall in a participatory process. These everyday messages had to be processed first before attention could be turned to the big, unsent messages.
BOTIN is a production by Un-Label in collaboration with director Philine Velhagen and a mixed-abled team of performers.
We say thank you!
A huge thank you goes to our audience, who joined us on this journey. Thank you to everyone who shared their messages with us – in writing, via audio, via video or directly in the purple BOTIN letterbox in Cologne. We are currently putting our heads together to figure out how we can continue BOTIN.
Because BOTIN has shown how relevant the messages we carry with us and never send are. No wonder: in an age of constant communication, what is important often lies hidden.
Your Un-Label Team
Press reviews
We are delighted about all the positive coverage of BOTIN!
“One of Cologne’s most innovative productions of the year in terms of content and performance” (Choices)
…according to Thomas Dahl for the Cologne culture magazine Choices. Read the full article here.
COSMO Radio, WDR5 and WDR3 also reported enthusiastically about the unusual archive and its social relevance. Listen now!
Further articles have appeared in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger and the Kölner Rundschau, among others.
Click here for the press review.
Team
Philine Velhagen Director
Karen Bentfeld Performance
Petr Hastik Performance
Justine Hauer Performance
Jonas Relitzki Performance
Vita Zuiderwijk Performance
Konrad Bohley Performance
Nina Rühmeier Co-Dramaturgy
Benedikt Fuchs Music & Sound Design
Cordula Körber Set Design & Costumes
Lucas Dülligen Video
Kai Kullen Graphic Design
Annette Etges Photography
Christian Herbert Lighting Design
Max Sattler Sound Engineering
Julia Riera-Kresser Production
Aaron Kosmas Kusche Collaboration Scenography
Charlott Dahmen Outside Eye
Amy Zayed Outside Eye Perspective Viewing
Lucas Rosenberg Outside Eye Perspective Viewing
Jan Wolf Sign Language Interpreter
Sarena Bockers Sign Language Interpreter
Dejan Mutmann Intern, Un-Label
Charline Haberberger Intern, Un-Label
Sara Wenniges Administration, Un-Label
Nikos Konstantakis Production, Un-Label
Laura Vennes PR & Marketing, Un-Label
Nils Rottgardt Aesthetics of Access & Artistic Director, Un-Label
Lisette Reuter Creative Producer, Un-Label
In cooperation with
