By Erik Morse
“Berlin means depravity” begins noted performance scholar Mel Gordon in his Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. “Moralists across the widest spectrum of political and spiritual beliefs have condemned by rote this chimerical metropolis as a strange city built on strange soil.” With its iconography of leather ‘n’ lace, absinthe, and smarmy zither scores, the early 20th century world of Weimar may seem as far removed as a Grimm fairy tale. But with all of tomorrow’s lusting and boozing, who among us doesn’t become a bit German on Valentine’s Day? Ich bin ein Berliner.
If you’re yet to determine plans for this most debauched of holidays, then consider San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s homage to Berlin’s fabled era of cabarets and intoxicants. Brooklyn artist Earl Dax and his NYC company will present With Weimar New York: A Golden Gate Affair. Avant-impressario Dax is debuting a cadre of dancers, burlesque acts, and gender-bending provocateurs whose influences lie equally in the iconoclastic East Village no-wave scene and the decadent Germania of Christopher Isherwood. Slated to appear are post-Warholian legend Penny Arcade and performance artist Ann Magnuson, latter-day raconteur Holcombe Waller and others, with MCs Justin Bond – of Kiki and Herb – and Ana Matronic – of Scissor Sisters fame.
Marlene Dietrich’s screentest for Der Blaue Engel, c. 1930