Katharina Senzenberger (they/them) is a choreographer based in Germany.  They work interdisciplinary between dance, performance and visual arts - in solo auhorship, in loose collaborative settings and collectively as part of the artist duo senzenberger|rieck.

An interest in dance in the digital age, and in the hypersexualized world of popular culture, the affective potenial of movement and states of transformation and liquification connect the various works which range from stage performances, to site-specific works to film. Senzenberger‘s choreographic works have been presented at numerous venues and festival such as tanzhaus nrw, Tanzfaktur Köln, Lehartheater Bad Ischl, Fabrik Heeder Krefeld, Favoritenfestival, tanz nrw festival, among others. Their production “Wetland” (2022) was invited to Tanzplattform Deutschland 2024, Germany’s most renowned platform for contemporary dance. Currently, Katharina Senzenberger is nominated for the annual performing arts prize by the city of Düsseldorf. 

"There is always a risk of flooding"– Astrida Neimanis

In Romance Reservoir, Katharina Senzenberger explores the poetic potential of Horst Festival’s unique watery site that is the rainroom. With its semi-open roof, the room draws attention to its porous membrane, revealing to whoever is inside always simultaneously an outside. A huge pond – a reservoir - serves as the center stage and at the same time as a metaphorical backdrop for this dance duet with Benze C. Werner. As storage, container, repository, or supply - the reservoir serves as a liminal site of encounter and as a transition area.  In this symbolically charged space of the in-between, Katharina Senzenberger explores the notion of romance in a similar understanding of, in this case, two bodies meeting, embracing, clashing and transforming one another. Searching for queer (be)longing. The performance dives into our collective archive of romantic gestures and images and questions them both in a mix of critical distance and fascination. A dreamscape unfolds like a tale that is held together by the sentient sounds of composer iona w. and neoprene-nuptial costumes by Judit Förster. Quivering in vague states of desire, interweaving moments of ephemeral intimacy with the epos of the spectacle, and dedicated to the practice of relation-making, Romance Reservoir is speculating how multilayered and ambiguously sedimented our relationships can become. 

Photo by Nathan Ishar.