Bodo Wartke - 7th Piano Cabaret Program - Wonder Point

Abera Kadabera! Fine wordplay, surprising rhymes, and virtuosic piano playing – Bodo Wartke's seventh program offers entertaining musical cabaret and acrobatic tongue-twister slams. The entertainer and poet pits wonder against the power of habit, placing humor alongside old patterns. Lightness! – Why not? Bodo Wartke brings it to the wonder point!

In his seventh piano cabaret program, the musician and cabaret artist presents himself as a storyteller who listens to the absurdly comical events of everyday life with all its inconsistencies and condenses them in a double sense. Bodo Wartke takes an exceptionally playful, language- and word-acrobatic look at the phenomena of our interactions. He draws from the rich resources of the German language and, with a fine sense of nuance, elevates many a vocabulary.

Problems with the printer reveal themselves as an identity crisis of the technical device, which is trapped in the wrong body. The “egg hole,” known from children's rhymes, triggers a hair-raisingly absurd and simultaneously philosophical stream of consciousness in the sleep-drunk musician. And last but not least, the cabaret artist develops well-known tongue twisters into poems and short anarchic stories, which he performs in various musical genres, rapping with piano or cajón – a tongue-twister slam full of rhythm 'n' poetry.

Once again, the stage artist demonstrates himself to be a musically versatile entertainer, well-versed in both pop and high culture, sampling through our everyday life linguistically and musically. Sometimes comedically in the satirical exaggeration of unrestrained consumerism, presented as a rap cover of a summer hit. Or provocatively sarcastic in the parody of the habit of "mansplaining," here as rock 'n' roll. But also lyrically in a classical adaptation, where the pianist gently takes us up in a tender ode to the moon and quietly offers a change of perspective in a backward glance.

And so, amidst all the lightness, serious tones also emerge. The songwriter reflects thoughtfully on early learned, unhealthy behavior patterns that can dictate our lives. He critically illuminates misogyny and the radical interpretation of religious dogmas. Yet, the hopeful gaze is not absent: What could our world look like if the many sore points of humanity were overcome?

On the way there, there will be many slips of the tongue and stumbles. Bodo Wartke welcomes them, for they are part of the journey as we strive for the wonder point.