A dancer at the Schaubuhne

[imomus]

Phew, what to say about Donna Summer? Donna Summer is a man. Donna Summer's real name is Jason Forrest. Jason lives in Williamsburg Brooklyn (although he's soon moving with his wife to Atlanta), writes for Vice magazine, and has a show on WFMU. He's a friend of my friend Nathan Michel (who I've actually never met, but consider America's greatest living music talent). Jason and his wife came to my Electronics in the 18th Century show at KnitActive one snowy night in March 2000 when I'd just moved to New York, and they were the only people in the audience, and I did the whole show just for them. Jason says his current manic stage show is influenced somewhat by my over-the-top presentation style. On tonight's evidence (for Monday night he appears at the Berlin Transmediale) Jason is also influenced by Steve Ballmer's famous Microsoft presentation, the monkey boy dance. With perhaps a little bit of Dick Cheney mixed in, a Dick Cheney in between electoral victory (Jason is wearing a big political rosette pinned to his shirt as he bounds about, punching the air) and a massive coronary. Donna Summer plays loud crunchy samples, plundering like Akai just invented the sampler, like the KLF just asked '1987, WTF?' He sounds like this. He will shortly release The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash on Sonig, one of the three best labels in the world (1: Active Suspension 2: Tomlab 3: Sonig).



To be honest, Jason's set, even enhanced by Mumbleboy's cute graphics, is a little too extraverted for me. And what's more, I've just seen someone as genuinely lovely as Jason is ironically ugly. Sitting in the Mao Lounge (a kind of chill-out zone of improv laptoppery) I've just seen Laurie Young. Phew, what to say about Laurie Young? She's Chinese Canadian. She lives in Berlin and dances with the Sasha Waltz company at the Schaubuhne. She is, as far as I'm concerned, a total rock star. Our weirdly one-sided relationship goes back a long way. I saw her first at The Place Theatre in London in about 1997, dancing in Allee der Cosmonauten. I think I've seen every Sasha Waltz production since then. I even bunked off the Kreidler tour in 2000, somewhat rupturing my relationship with the group, to see her dancing naked in 'S', a piece so powerfully sexual that Shizu, my partner at the time, vomited her admiration into a basin when it ended. The Sasha Waltz company is one of the reasons I moved to Berlin. The women of the Sasha Waltz company (Claudia de Serpas, Takako Suzuki, Laurie Young) are the true rock stars of Berlin, the same way the women of the YBA scene (Georgina Starr, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas) were the true rock stars of London when I moved back there from Paris in 1997. I admire them so much.



I know Claudia and Takako to talk to. But Laurie is 'my special one'. I've never talked to her. I wouldn't dare. Yet when I go to Sasha Waltz pieces (and I've seen the current piece, the extraordinary dance installation inside out twice already, and will probably go again before the run ends) it's no exaggeration to say that I have eyes only for Laurie. Laurie is tiny, slim and neat. Laurie has a tattoo on her lower back. Laurie often improvises little monologues about her cultural identity. Laurie has a quirky, slightly twee burrikko manner which her Canadian accent only adds to. Laurie dresses very inventively. There is some kind of otherness about Laurie. Laurie lives in a world way cooler than mine. Laurie is not on Friendster. Laurie does not keep a LiveJournal. Laurie has better things to do than Google her own name on the internet. Laurie Young! Laurie Young! Laurie Young!



Laurie is punky-cute. Laurie is bendy-supple. Laurie is sex on a stick. I have a huge crush on Laurie. When our eyes meet, I see utter disinterest and pure contempt. We will never be friends, and never be lovers. Laurie, for all I know, might be gay. Tonight I drift from room to room, following her as she escapes Donna Summer's rabble-rousing. I feel as lonely and lovestruck as I did at the age of 18, when I loved Paula and Paula didn't love me. That must have been about the same time I was reading Christopher Isherwood and listening to David Bowie's Berlin trilogy. And now here I am. I'm not David Bowie, I'm not Herr Isyvoo, and Laurie Young is not Sally Bowles. But I can dream, can't I?

Comments

Jean-Pierre d'East Midlands

[(Anonymous)]

It's not Dick Cheney, it's Greg Dyke having his heart ripped out by his old Labour rosette. I feel very untopical saying that, only a few days later. "Move on!!"