If Bert Brecht came back to life and saw a show by the French-Austrian performance group Superamas, he would probably want to return to his grave immediately. Even though collective efforts far outweigh individual artistic expression here (Brecht would have liked that!), Superamas's work runs completely counter to all the moralist theater conventions the German playwright established. "There are enough theater companies that formulate critical questions and immediately provide you with the right answers," one Superamas member explained to Belgian thinker Pieter T'Jonck. "These companies almost compulsively position themselves as critics of contemporary society."   Rather than getting on a high horse, Superamas create productions that become show horses for their corporate sponsors. The group is by no means loath to involve their sponsors in the creative process, either. In their last production, BIG 2nd Episode, the collective used lingerie and a logo by the Austrian Wolford company for costumes and stage design. "Every form of theater is a form of propaganda," they argue. "Business and art are inextricably linked. All the more so if they negate the fact that they are." In their performances, Superamas focus on superficial aspects of life such as picking out lipstick at a store and picking up a pretty girl. However, Superamas perform these superficial acts in such an exaggerated and sleek way that the spectator can't help but feel alienated from the mirror image of his or her everyday life. By juxtaposing cosmetic product placements with a confession about bulimia, they make the audience question their loyalty to consumer culture icons.   The group was founded in 1998 by four men who no longer want to be mentioned by name. "Superamas is like Sony," one of them explains. "If you want to sell Sony, you won't sell it by the name of its CEO. Our strategy is purely commercial." They also wanted to do away with traditional notions of what it means to be an artistic genius. "We are trying to conduct different forms of artistic research. Working in a collective is a big part of it. A dialog among five people is more interesting because we challenge each other more."   In French, the word superama denotes a galaxy cluster. It seems as if the group wanted to create its own parallel universe in its shows. That Superama is the name of the biggest, Wal-Mart-owned supermarket chain in Mexico probably doesn't bother them, either.   The various members of the group have backgrounds in set and sound design, choreography, and filmmaking. Their work includes performances, videos, and installations. No medium is given preferential treatment. They share a keen interest in the sciences, from urbanism and cybernetics to artificial intelligence and psychology. There is no mastermind, just ideas. Past performances and installations entitled Body Builders (2001), Diggin' Up (2001) and Big 1 all attempt to provide an insight into our everyday world, especially by examining the position occupied by the body, the way it gives structure and meaning to its surroundings and vice versa, how its role is therefore defined.   On a flight from Vienna to Paris a year ago, the creative foursome met flight attendant Elisa Benureau. They struck up a conversation and found out she wanted to quit her job to become a performer. One thing led to another and she ended up joining the group as a guest.   BIG 2nd Episode, the most recent Superamas show, centers on Elisa and her supermodel looks. She plays the flirty flight attendant, a sadomasochistic Catwoman and the group's best, albeit abused, fundraising tool. She weaves the red thread of desire through the entire production.   Superamas use various techniques to achieve an alienating effect on stage. Except for one song performed by Ms. Benureau (a feminist spin on the 4 Non Blondes song "What's Up?"), not a single word is spoken live on stage. Instead, the group lip-synchs dialogs that were previously recorded by other actors. While the performers on stage may seem natural in the first scene, it becomes clear soon enough that they move their lips mechanically, as if every facial expression and every gesture were trained. For them, authenticity is no longer possible. Everything is fake. As Eva-Maria Magel noted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "Superamas show their audiences how strongly our entire perception, our body posture, and our language are marked by the artificiality of what is commonly known as 'pop culture.'"   In many productions, Superamas use English as a lingua franca. It allows them to reach an international audience. In their opinion, "the English language is characteristic of airport culture; it has ingredients that everybody knows and understands."   Superamas also like to repeat scenes, albeit with varying outcomes. "Repetition changes the interpretation of an event," they say. "Other elements, other perceptions slip into the experience. It's a strong means to make the spectator conscious of her interpretation, her thinking process. And also of the fact that her thinking is partly structured by the 'formats' and mechanisms of the popular culture of images."   They call their creative practice démontrer, i.e. deconstructing something that originally was an entity with the aim to question all visible parts and therefore criticize the conventions of our media culture.   The group also mixes up different genres of high and low culture. Jean-Luc Godard is on equal footing with Britney Spears and John Rose, the CEO of Rolls Royce. Mix in a little Ben Stiller as a top model in the movie "Zoolander." All encounters between "high" and "low" produce interesting twists: While Godard makes a sexist remark, a taped conversation with John Rose reveals the harsh reality of the discharge of 5,000 employees. "We don't judge anything. We just combine things that are normally not combined to raise new questions," says one Superamas member. "We think it is ridiculous to think that theater is political when there is nothing to laugh about. Theater can be deep and amusing. We easily combine American movies and European intellectuals."   printer version tell a friend contact US Tour Superamas tours the United States this January:   Walker Art Center, OUT THERE Festival, Minneapolis, MN January 12-14, 2006, 8pm BIG, 2nd epsiode , performance http://www.walkerart.org   Public Theater, UNDER THE RADAR Festival, New York, NY January 19-22, 2006, 19th at 8pm, 20st at 9pm, 21st at 1pm, 22nd at 5pm BIG, 2nd epsiode , performance http://www.publictheater.org/upload/Under_The_Radar2006.1.pdf http://www.artspresenters.org/conference06/schedule/utr.cfm   Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH January 26-29, 2006, 26-28 at 8pm, 29 at 2pm BIG, 2nd epsiode , performance http://www.wexarts.org