“Everyone” is an artist..”

in the small worldness (small… try *microscopic* ) that constitutes those various constellations that make up berlin society there is often the sense of two individuals circling, or maybe orbiting one another. waiting for the time of collision, of eclipse.

one quickly learns to reserve judgement of a new aqquaintance and to avoid burning any and all bridges at all costs. you will come into contact again and again with this person, and find a growing number of mutual friends, some baring connections you could never imagine.

at times an alliance is born from this, or scenes, or affairs, or very rarely, relationships. it is less a matter of courting or dating, and more a matter of the cosmos pushing you into contact again and again and again. maybe the first time you barely spoke, maybe you only just noticed one another. the next time, a nod. the next time, an introduction. the next time, an effor to remember names. the next time, a conversation. this is the best way…

the worst is when one or the other clashes from the start. or one dismisses the other totally. or one is outright rude. because then when you meet again, when your meetings rack up like the winnings of a good night at a casino, he/she that denied the other at first meeting is forced through an extended comeuppance. all translating back to the bottom line - now you have to deal with me.. and i have the upper hand. “ha… so now you want to date my friend?… oh did you realise i manage the list of this club… oh yes i’m friends with the owner of the gallery, oh you wanted to book me? oh you were hoping i’d book you…) and depending on the power involved or the necessity of the favour or trade off,  leading even the most arrogant and egocentric to somtimes.. beg.

then there’s the middle ground. those dalliances born out of one drunken evening, when two people connect so freely in the way you sometimes do with a stranger you never expect or plan to see again. maybe you even have sex that first time you meet. and then just as you wish to forever file that one night stand in your back catalogue, your repeated accidental meetings continue to haunt you with memories of that one night. and its not just like these meetings occur in warehouse clubs and decadent after hours like how you met. they occur in pseudo sophisticated gallery openings, and worse still at 4pm in the afternoon at kaisers… your basket contains whole milk, smoked salmon, eggs, a bottle of sekt, you’re grateful that you never leave the house without makeup. but you’re way too hungover for small talk.

and if you’re a performer of some description. if you stand out a bit, a way of dress, an accent, your skintone, ethnic features of any kind at all, you find yourself encountering people who *know* you. even though you’ve never really met. in order to perform i created an alterego. something to give me the courage to go in front of people and tell them really personal stories.  it was ok because *it wasn’t me*

but it doesn’t actually work that way.

because the audience doesn’t see a character. they see a person. talking to *them* and with an air of sincerity that suggests the stories they’re being told have truth in them. and off the stage, when the performer is seen out and about. they are still a continuation of this performance in the audiences’s eye. an ongoing embodiment of the character. not even a character.  the word privacy never really considered, just shrinks away.

what was i thinking? i guess i didn’t. i guess it never occurred to me that by putting myself out there, and doing everything i could to engage with people. to make them feel like i was inviting them into my private life, to make them feel like my friends, to make them feel like i was living what they were living or wanted to, that i would express what they may want to say but coudn’t , or wouldn’t dare, or wouldn’t know how to. i thought i could engage with people, and leave that engagement, that connection to the confines of the stage, or the hours of a gig.

but i live in a microscopic scene. and i stand out. i stood out even before i put myself out under stage llight after stage light to make myself stand out more. more and more strangers come up to me and make comments on the life i have invited them into via performance. more and more people have no idea that it is partly a character i have created for them. and its draining to be on all the time. i created paula to get away from me. this could be the point where i back away, or i make her even less like me. but as much as it may complicate my current need/interest for privacy further, the direction i’m now headed is to put even more of myself into this character to convey the work i’m interested in making, in writing in performing.

i need to put more of me into her to make her more 3 dimensional. i need to add vulnerablity to the rawness. and that is the point of this play i’m putting on on friday. and i’m terrified and excited.and now my small world is no longer just berlin, its the poetry scene of several cities. and i feel myself in orbit with several people in those cities, and i am very curious of how things will develop in repeat meetings.. .