Yesterday I went with a girl from my singing group to see the woman who runs our singing group perform with her band. They were playing in a really cute little venue called Schoko Laden (which incidentally is a really old performing venue now sadly under threat of closure). There were three performers in total and let's just say - it was an experience!!
The first performer was an Israeli sex worker/poet/journalist who proceeded to strip naked, stick a fire cracker up her arse and then wiggle her bum around as the sparks flit up the room! Interesting! lol
The second performer was also a spoken word/poetry performer - a guy dressed in drag who strutted round the small room screaming at audience members and generally being quite scary. A couple of points during his performance he came close to where I was sitting and I started getting worried he might make me stand up and do a couple of cart wheels in front of the audience. As it happened he settled on a woman in front of me to whom he leaned in close and suddenly let out an ear piercing scream (with a terrifying look of pure evil) before stroking her hair and saying how lovely she looked... I wasn't convinced he meant it! ;)
After he finished, the Israeli woman came back to the stage wearing a big baggy skirt. Then she sat down, leaned back and spread her legs akimbo to reveal ALL (I thought we were going to get one of those infamous ping-pong ball shows!) as she read a poem about how she was far more than a sex worker - she was also a writer and a poet. After that she donned a jilbab (the Muslim woman's head cover) and stripped the rest of her body naked again to reveal drawings of the different Middle Eastern countries. Then she danced around to the song 'Do you want a piece of me?'
I have to say that despite the initial gasps of shock, it was a very though provoking performance! It's always nice to be challenged - and this performance certainly did that!
Well then our singing group girl and her band came on and were really good. They sang a great little song called Windows which my friend was a huge fan of (kind of a Chicks on Speed type song - I'll try to get a link up!)
After they finished the other guy came back again. He was also pretty good I think. I'm a sucker for poetry so I found it all really interesting! I think he must have been a leo because he just didn't want to get down off that stage! After being told time was up and the venue had to close, he started arguing with the venue's manager and eventually asked people to join him in the bar afterwards... so a group of us sat around as he went through his notebook and read all the poems he could find - even the ones he hadn't finished yet. Eventually his friends got up to leave and shouted at him that he was going to miss the last u-bahn (tube). He didn't seem to mind though...
I really enjoyed listening to his poetry and was really glad I'd gone to the show!
(This picture is from another night but it gives you an idea of how cute the venue is!)
Hi again, I just stumbled across some info about these performers on Facebook, so thought I'd add them here! :)
ReplyDeleteFrom Israel, the performer:
LIAD LIAD, spoken word/cabaret/burlesque
‘I focus more on less on 2 types of performances, the first being more of a drag with burlesque, very raw and sometimes raunchy but rather short - pieces the length of a song, and spoken word pieces that are accompanied by a performance for some visual stimulation. Lately they've all been on the subject of sex work (I’m a sex worker and a sex worker activist-organizer, the first outed sex worker in Israel Palestine). They each a strong per formative element in them, and oftentimes much use of the body in a physical or sexualised form.’
From Canada but Berlin based, the performer:
Marc Andre Casavant, cross dresser & spoken word performer of a very sensual manner. His words are witty, extravagant, sexy and daring. Also very funny and desperate! Marc-Andre Casavant, actor-writer-performer from Montreal who live in Berlin for couple of months exposing in this unusual artistic proposition how hard it is to stay alive. His character, DISCOSALOPE is not completely a man and not exactly a woman. Dark humour meets self limits during this glamour sharing. We are all mirrors to others. Puzzle effects of a modern crazy world. Consequences of our bad day by day habits. When trashy-fashion is too much...