Cirkus Klauterwerck @ Amsterdam’s Radion: Fuck Gender, Pure Desire (Dec 19)
Labelling themselves a ‘circus’ for queers and friends and home of good music from disco to techno’, Berlin/ Amsterdam collective Cirkus Klauterwerck are passionate about both their parties and the ethos behind them.
“For our last get-together of the year we would like to invite all like-minded and free spirits for a very special gathering. It will be a SYMPOSIUM in honour of FREEDOM,” they declare on the event page for Saturday’s QUEERKLUB #4 at Radion in Amsterdam.
“Let’s travel back in time to a society where everybody was (at least) bisexual and break the boxes of homo- and heterosexuality once and forever!!”
“No man can defeat his own erection”, they helpfully add, before outlining their latest dress-code directions.
“Think symposium but don’t get stuck in ancient Greece, express yourself,” they recommend.
“Think Mysterious Muze, Sexy Troubadour, Naked Ephebos or Oichonoöi, Funky Poet or just be really creative.”
Emerging almost fully formed from Amsterdam’s infamous alternative/ art squat community of Ruigoord in 2012, Cirkus Klauterwerck immediately attracted a select bunch of outsiders, misfits and queers that’s grown to the point where they’re now packing out Radion for regularly tri-monthly parties alongside additional events both in Ruigoord and a stage at Milkshake Festival.
Despite their directions for revellers to dress up, Carlo (one of six organisers) insists they’re anything but elitist.
“Actually anybody that feels like playing our game is very welcome,” he clarifies. “It’s just that we have a dress-code and expect each and everyone to make at least some effort.”
“We think it is a great add-on for a party to work with a dress-code,” he explains.
“We really try to motivate people to use their creativity. When you have 500 people who’ve made an effort dancing together on a dance floor you get a really good vibe. And the more effort people make the bigger the bubble grows.”
Dani studies the science of history at college during her daytimes and came up with this event’s theme after attending a series of seminars examining sex, sexuality and sexual identities in the ancient world, in particular Ancient Greece.
“I think it’s nothing new nowadays that back in the day, people’s understanding of sexuality was very different,” she points out.
“I was just deeply impressed that long time ago there was a society where sexual orientation was not an issue. You can find hints for an open-minded society almost everywhere, in art, lyris, even in graffiti written on walls,” she notes.
So three years on, how many more ‘like-minded free spirits’ have they discovered out there?
“There are never enough of those,” Marcella, the third of the trio, smiles.
”Our get-togethers also have a networking function, we hope free spirits can gather around and meet each other and automatically create an international network.”
QUEERKLUB #4 ?? ? Sympós?on; F#ck gender, pure desire ? ?? takes place on Saturday December 19 at Radion, Amsterdam: (buy tickets here)
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