About this clown

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I often feel that we're all spinning slowly... like a mirror ball. Yes, we are all mirrors to each other. And so, it is the Light between us that I hope to help reveal and celebrate. /// J'ai souvent l'impression que nous sommes une boule disco qui tourne lentement. Nous sommes tous des miroirs pour les uns les autres. C'est donc la lumière qu'il y a entre nous que j'espère contribuer à souligner et à célébrer.

Friday, October 14, 2011

HE was Built for Speed!

Thoughts accumulate throughout the day and in so many directions, it's hard to actually verbalize it.  Last night HE had a gig at the King Kong Club.  How did it go?  HE... had. a. blast!
A couple of Americans, Mad Kate (Kathryn Fisher) and her partner, Juan Of a Kind, have been "throwing this party"(what a strange phrase!) one thursday each month for the past five years.  Last night, very few people were actually in the bar.  We had been scheduled to perform at 22h but we went on about an hour and a half later, of course. ''If it starts on time, it's not art!''
There were perhaps only 12-15 people in there... but: we truly played with them!
Before the show, Harvey was going around taking sips from people's drinks, and of course, I-Magda had to leave the comfort of the backstage lounge (where Magda was perfectly pleased to be dancing and singing to herself in the mirror for a while) in order to stop her from making a terrible fool of herself, causing havoc, and above all, embarrassing me-Magda!
We had such fun playing with people, sitting with them, me with my lipstick and mustache attire, talking to them in French, even though they didn't even speak a word of it!  Although, doing this pre-game thing I  found out that four or five actually did speak very good French, which meant that it was going to be a bit of a challenge, and certainly quite some fun...

"Lonely no More"

I find that working in gibberish with Madga has helped me with the physicality a bit more.  Nevertheless, I do have some work to do with keeping this crazy hysteric character grounded throughout the piece.. and with this non-language I still had the tendency to fly up and up...
It was fun for a while, and I do still hope to play with gibberish.  The reason I'm so attached to the idea is because I find language to be such a fascinating phenomenon.. and such an absurd and funny thing!  But I guess I've discovered that gibberish is perhaps one of those things that are best used only when it is "done well."  I'm not sure exactly what this means.  I suspect it might have to do with economy, as James Donlon would say.



So the show was a success.  The twelve people in our audience laughed, and gasped, and shouted and played with us.  It felt great.


We are doing another night at the same place next week (on my birthday!) - a different party though.  And for next time we are creating an alternative ending.  It'll be a special edition! if you my may say so; and there are talks of it involving hair clippers...

After the gig, Juan was DJ-ing some really good music; a lot of stuff I had only heard once of twice, mostly  "eighties queer rock pop"; or at least that's how I would call it.  By then, it was perhaps half passed midnight.  I had told Harv that I might very well go straight home after the gig - because I have been dancing 5 hours of Butoh everyday since Wednesday, and had another day of workshop today!  (How I want to elaborate on this too!!)  and I meant it... I was really tired.  But when I heard the music and saw the crowd (Kate, and Megg) dancing madly, I came out of the backstage room with my three free-drinks tickets and decided to stay.. for a little while.

Alex pours a Bavarian beer like it's a work of art!

Well, it turned out that all these beautiful people were actually all good friends with one another- duh!  Gorgeous freaky people!  Queers, punks and fairies...
Harvey and I exchanged a look and almost said it in unison: I love Berlin!


Kathryn, Andre, and Meg.
Partyin' like it's 1989!



I know these pictures could make you raise an eyebrow or two.  Well, what can I say?  Berlin is a place where these things just happen.  There is this edge, this pushing, this reputation for experimental art and performance art.  There are ex-patriates, artists from the United States, who have come here to play outside the bounds of a puritan American culture.
And remember: Europeans have a different perspective/ relationship with/perception of sexuality.  So let's just say that when you juxtapose a Berliner-German psyche (of which there a lot I hope to discuss further) on that backdrop, well... it creates some hot kinky stuff!

In short, it seems that our genderstranged clown duo might very well have found a home!  Everybody there was the sweetest, most fun radical people.  (No offense to you Alyssa, rocking out Rage Against the Machine with a bunch of Hamburger metal lovers was quite a memorable experience too, but this was just some crazy stuff! hehe)  In fact you know what it is?  It's a kind of FREEDOM...  These folks are so free...


When dancing becomes public performance:
sexy, raw, beautiful, alive!
(yet, still tasteful.  I swear!)

I got home around 4am.

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