THE INNER REFLECTING SKINULAR

Had a sensational time in Hamburg on the first leg of a Rising Stars, Falling Stars World Dominatrix Tour.  Yes my amazing partners in grime Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus and Daniel Hendrickson the Skandinavian Muslim and I hopped on a train for the lovely port city as part of the Internationales Sommerfestival at Kampnagel and the exhibition A Paradise Built in Hell at the world famous Kunstverein.  I’ve performed many times at Kampnagel but it was my first time at the Kunstverein which is a very large contemporary art space located conveniently near the Hauptbanoff train station.  The exhibition A Paradise Built in Hell(the title taken from the Rebecca Solnit book) is co-curated by our very own Empress Stefanie and art world darling Bettina Steinbruegge.  Miss Bettina is also the Direktorin of the Kunstverein and has been working for many years with Stefanie as part of her Forum Expanded crack curatorial team during the Berlinale Film Festival.  Bettina gave us a wonderfully intimate tour of the lush space which is marevelous beyond words.  This exhibit takes the 16mm format as a starting point and  features a large cast of international characters and some of the usual suspects like Heinz Emigholtz and the recently departed Harun Farocki. I was delighted to see that work from a slightly younger generation of artists like Guillaume Cailleau, Michel Belague and Markus Ruff were included.  My participation was with the 16mm film program in presenting the 1929 Bessie Smith starring short subject St. Louis Blues and the 1975 home movie The Blank Generation that features a startling performance by Ms. Jayne County.  The black box kino at Kunstverein was packed with a gaggle of fresh faces certainly not use to seeing a film program presented with such a whimsical Vagimulic approach.  Beginning our Rising Stars tour in Hamburg was important as its a city with quite a historical past of film co-ops and cinema kollectivs like the Toulouse Latrec Institute.  The remainder of the RSFS tour  will venture to Mexico, Central &South America, China, Korea, Afrika and Australia ending back in Europa skipping North America and New York City entirely—rah rah!
Miss Bettina gave me a beautifully designed art book she edited called Outlandos by Jeanne Faust that she signed that I will treasure, and her staff  at Kunstverein ---- utterly delightful.  Special thanks to Robert Goerss, Eva Zulauf the projectionist, Brigitte Skerra, Juliane Feldhoffer, Corinna Koch, Nadine Droste, and Lola Mense. Also kudos to The International Sommerfestival at Kampnagel A-Team: the enchanting Eike Wittrock, Amelie Deuflhard and Andras Siebold.  Also seen at the screening and wine reception: cutie pie curator Nicholas Cullinan,Brice Curiger of Kunsthaus Zurich, art wheeler badealer Christopher Canizares, Kenyan/German socialite Bahati Venus aka: Kolibri, Mobile Biennale's Adrian Bojenoiu, Maike Mia Hoehne the director of Berlinale Shorts who lives in Hamburg, art patron Jens Kahl, B-movie ingenues Taylor Kitsch & Brooklyn Decker, dull German pop star Jan Delay,  Nena who came to the event with the sister of one of the founding members of Kraftwerk(sorry I forgot your name) who I first met over 20 years ago when I was in Hamburg with the Six Sex Weeks Festival and the love sexy girls of  artist Phil Colins’ Just Cause You Feel It, Doesn’t Mean It’s There who collaborated with CHEAP on Camp/Anti-Camp in Frankfurt back in 2012.

FIELD TRIP

Rising Stars Falling Stars - Vaginal Davis & Jayne County & Kunstverein Hamburg - August 2014 by Filmanzeiger on Mixcloud

Rising Stars, Falling Stars goes on tour to Hamburg as part of the International Summer Festival and the exhibition "A Paradise Built In Hell" at the world famous KunstVerein. Take the train with Ms. Davis, Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus and Skandinavian Muzlim Daniel Hendrickson as they assault the St. George District.

Back in Berlina after over a month teaching a block seminar called Framing the Freakazoid at the Institute of Applied Theatre Sciences at the Justus Liebig Universitaet Giessen.  I had a marvelous time with my young charges who were a brilliant and talented bunch of artists. As a final class presentation they decided to do a 1960s style akshunist happening called Colateral Glamage.  The students broke into groups to handle costumes, make-up & hair, art direction,lighting, choreography, music and even created an art bar of potent cocktails in a cultish atmosphere of intimacy and wonder.  For a program they did an olde fashion cut&paste zine called Glamage.  Because this was a summer seminar I didn’t expect much of an audience for the final class presentation, but surprisingly almost 100 people packed the tiny rehearsal stage where the eventa took place and we had a celebrity sighting in the form of pop starlet Justin Bieber who was in town visiting his new lover who is a Giessen student.  I resisted being a control queen and taking over from the students.  My job was just to be a muse and provide inspiration.  Utlizing elaborate make-up and costuming is something that isn’t done so much at the Institute for Applied Theatre Sciences in Giessen so the audience was really wowed by the proceedings and of course I was every bit the proud mama.  On my last night the students treated Love Camel and I to a fabulous dinner at Die Kate Restaurant in Bismarque Strasse.  I was exhausted beyond measure as earlier in the day we had to clean-up the stage and also do a formal critique of the performance.  I also created a special award for some of the students called The Alles Uber Eva  based on the 1950 Hollywood film classic All About Eve.  I’m going to miss my time with the students of Giessen, but I know that we will be reunited for other projects in the future as all my former students aren’t able to get rid of me that easily.  I will go on art directing their entire lives whether they like it or not.
Back in Berlin fearless leader of kollectiv CHEAP Susanne Sachsse cooked a heavenly return dinner for me.  Love Camel and I were a more then a bit sick of each other after such a long time sharing a cramped space in Giessen.  I adore Camel but he is going through a bit of a mid life crisis these days and like most Camels he is grumpy and prone to nuclear hissy spitting.
Even though I had to literally go into a coma upon my return to Berlin, I couldn’t miss the surprise farewell party for longtime senior Arsenal projectionist Oushi who is retiring after 40 years of continuous service.  I have a special relationship with Oushi. At my very first presentation at the Arsenal ten years ago when they did a Vaginal Davis retrospectacle of my Trespass Cinema Underground Ouvre she was in the projection room and she yelled at me in her unmistakeable no nonsense Berliner style.  Anyone who can get away with screaming at the Vagimule Doll earns her admiration and love.  Every month when I present Rising Stars, Falling Stars I get a kick out of asking Oushi’s approval of my outfit.  It won’t be the Arsenal without Oushi and it also won’t be the Berlinale Film Festival without her----she is a one of a kind treasure.

GIESSEN AFTER DARK SIMULTAN

Julian Scherer, my handsome hunky stud of a student assistant when I taught at the Goethe Universitaet in the winter months and his pretty, vivacious best gal pal Sandra came to take the Camel and I for luncheon at the cute restaurant Die Kate, near the city zentrum. We sat alfresco on the spacious terrazzo and oogled the cute Giessen male population throwing shade and snide commentary about the size of passerbyes genitalia, firmness of rump & halter. After lunch we celebrated Julian’s birthday at an Italian Gelato emporium on the pedestrian mall for a little more lighthousing and testes baiting. My gout had re-emerged in my foot Thursday eve causing the Vagimule doll extreme pain, so I was lucky that Julian came to pick me up in his flashy sportscar as I was in no shape to walk or ride a bicyleta. Julian is so smart and talented. He is only 23 years old but is working on his Phd in Semiotics. He also is a ferocious power top known to devastate bottoms in a single plop. I loved hearing of his recent sexy encounters with a Croatian medical doctor who he ravaged in a country wheat field, and a twitchy trio of young San Paolo WaterPolo Players with greedy haberholes who gave Julian’s beautifully masculine, muscular body and super human peterfication pure unadulurated worship whipping the fit lad into a frenzy where his only recourse was to tear open the margiela sugar walls of the hapless Brazilians turning tight boy channels into Sloppy Joe Holland Tunnels.

Sunday Evening it was Ladies Night as my glamour girl student Sonja Risse came to the Alexander von Humboldt Gast Haus to fetch me in her petite smart car for a dinner party at the home of my other students Arnita Jaunsubrēna and Emmilou Rößling. The guest list also included: Maria-Isabel Hagen, Lea Schneidermann,Kristin Gerwien, Clara Reiner and Caroline Creutzburg. The divoon menu: Minnestrone (soup with beans, tomato and vegetables)Vegetarian Lasagna (spinach-tomato-mushroom)Field salad with beet and apples with Frozen Cheesecake with wild blackberries that had been picked by Maria-Isabel early that afternoon. The drinkage:
Rosé,White Wine, Black Balzam (Latvian liqueur) with black currant juice
and Sparkling Water. The party wasn’t intended to be ladies only, but the young men invited all happened to be spending the weekend with their significant others. It was just as well that the dinner turned in a Daughters of Bilitis soiree and we all had  a lovely time together laughing and gossiping about the boys in my seminar to their utter chagrin.

DIE WAECHTER DES HERZENS

My wonderful and lovesssexy student assistant Christoph Bovermann cooked a scrumptious gourmand dinner the other night at his spacious flat near the city center.  Christoph and his equally ueber sexxxy boyfriend JP who is a student director in Zurich are the cutest, most sweetest couple I have met in ages. With young people like Christoph and JP there is finally hope for the future.

The evening was majickal as we dined on a spacious patio while a summer thunderstorm transformed the sky into radiant  phospheracals. Here is the formal menu of Christoph’s dinner party, and in the words of Tilda Swinton it was“transporting!”

Campari-Orange/Tonic-Citrus /Peach-Zucchini-Salad with Buffalo-Mozzarella-Dressing/Hugo (Prosecco, elderflower syrup, sparkling water, mint)/Tonic-Citrus
Girolles with Radicchio-Apricot-Salad/Casserole of Oven-Baked Potato Slices with Braised Onions and a Haselnut-Crust/ desert: Rote Inge (raspberries, raspberry liquor, meringue, cream)

The gorgeous dinner guests included a few of my fabulous student artists: Ms. Judith Altmeyer who is a major Woody Allen fan and admirer of the chanson singer from the 1960s France Gall, Miss Lea who has been masterful in handling all technical needs for the seminar, vivacious sex god Christopher Weickenmieir, who has an asstrovar to build a dream on, and a handsome Columbian beau and Christoph Bovermann’s  super model flatmate Lisa Marie.
Everyone has been really lovely to me and Love Camel at Giessen, the staff  in the Secretaire office Julie Pownall who is an English Rose from Manchester,  French siren Sylvie Guillou & Anna Artysiewicz, plus the technical support people that I have met. No one from the administration took me out for a fancy welcoming dinner like I’ve received at other Universities, but perhaps they were all on holiday as I did come in the middle of summer.  I had a huge turnout at my opening artist talk including the personable Bojana Kunst who is a professor of Choreography and Performance I’ve met before through Janez Jansa aka Davide Grassi of the Aksioma Institute of Contemporary Art in Ljubiana, Slovenia and it was a delight to meet my fellow guest professor the enchanting Miho Takayasu from Osaka, Japan who has been teaching the Geissen students Kagura a specific type of Shinto theatrical dance -    that I wasn’t familiar with. Last night I went to Ms. Takayasu’s class presentation and it was sublime.  So playful and full of life, the students were so committed and focused.  I especially lusted over one super sexy, humpy dork of a lanky young man with slight musculature, glasses and bony long hands and feet.  I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him and the way he moved while dancing and the intense expressions on his face.  Last Sunday I went to see the MA performance of Kathrin Ebmeier who is one of my students who is certainly destined for art stardom.  She has a quality like the golden era Hollywood starina Louise Rainer. Her piece was called Ich Habe Heute Leider Foto fuer Dich and mixed fashion, architecture, installation, neuralscience, rockstardom, photography and material film.  The performance was so warm and giving and featured a photomanuscript that was lovingly  created by Kathrin’s collaborateur Heike Kandalowski.  I was wrapped up in the original indie rock music by Golddiggers(Laura Eggert and Arne Koehler and of course I have to mention the stylish costumes and functioning jewelry/armor by  Ernese Bodalay that reminded me of some of the work of Travis Banton from Paramount Pictures in the early 1930s.
On my first night in Giessen the Camel and I attended an X-Wohne style group of solo shows called X-Soli: Solo als Gemeinschaftswerk where I got to get a taste of how the school operates.  Of course I’ve misplaced my notes from that evening but the highlights:  a foam installation sound and movement piece by one of my pretty students Emmilou Rossling who later took Camel & I to the Giessen Flea Market across the River where I bought some hot items sold by happy go lucky students Dominic Meder and Maria Vogt and where I was able to flirt with sexy tall blondine Felix who is the father of the most beautiful newborn child I have ever seen.  Felix will be one of the DJ's during the party after our final class presentation on August 7^th. It was also very sweet of Felix to volunteer his flat to Love Camel while he and his girlfriend and their baby were on holiday so that I could have the crampt quarters in the guest house all to myself.  I must have been crazy thinking Camel and I could be stuck together for over three weeks in one small room. At the X-Soli presentation i also enjoyed a mock lecture on The Loch Ness Monster, An animated diarama of the Applied Theatre Sciences Dept,a movement piece in the dark, and another quasi installation/movement performance featuring a tennis ball aparatus, and a monologue where the artist arrived out on the lawn of the campus making a splashy entrance with a taxi.
One of the things I’ve noticed in Giessen is that the boys here don’t smoke, drink and druggen as much as they do in Berlin so they are fresher and cleaner and there are a lot of fitness centers in the town and since there isn’t much else to do the men obsess on staying fit and hunky---yowza.  I even saw a drunken crusty boy in a square who had broad shoulders and was super muscular and handsome running around shirtless oiling his chest and big phat titties.  I also saw a gentle giant of a boy waiting for a bus who had a bubble butt of warmed over death and huge Fred Flintstone feet bursting out of his ugly Tiva mandles. Oddly enough he was wearing mom jeans.  After hanging out with the students at the Flea Market Camel took me to a bad(swim) park where we oogled a bunch of sporty link boys who were showing off their bodies doing gymnastic routines.  I was in eye candy heaven that day for almost two hours.  We had an awful luncheon at this American style diner called Chevy’s where I ordered the worse Veggy Burger on the planet and Camel’s baked potatoe was drowned in a lake of sour cream.  Word to the owner’s of Chevy. You can’t be a diner and not serve milk shakes.  The restaurants in the town are a bit limiting.  We ate at one place for bruncheon called the News Cafe that was ok but very bland in atmosphere though they had one cute little blondine boi waiter who took a shine to us as we were newcomers.  We’ve eaten several times at the only restaurant near the visiting artist guest house-- a Greek establishment called Aspendos that is serviceable, though my students all think the place is creepy.  Camel and I had a fun time at Christoph Bovermann’s birthday party in a cute little park around the corner from his flat.  Christoph is a vegetarian so the food at his shindig was  of course scrumptdelecti.
On my second day of teaching I divided the class into smaller kunst kollektivs. There are a lot of famous kunst kollectives that came out of Giessen like Rimini Protocol, She She Pop, Gob Squad, And & Company and the writer Rene Polesche. The students gave each other titles within the groups and these names of their units:  Megafuckers LTD, House of Brittany, Hot Blacks (which features a very beautiful and super talented young black German girl named Joanna Tishkau), Jurrassex and La Croquette.  I’ve been having the students work on exercises with names like  Mother May I . . . Yes You May, The Performative Moment, Kierkegaard Fear & Trembling, Conjuring Voice, Extemperaneous Contemporary Invitation to the Dance,What’s Your Damage? And my perennial favourite of Kunst Stalking.  My Giessen students took on the challenge of  Art Stalking and gave presentations in ways that no other class has ever done utilizing a lot of different performative methodologies. Teaching here at Giessen is so wonderful that I don’t have to worry about the insomnia that usually plagues me in Berlin.  I have been getting a healthy 8 hours sleep and I think I also look younger and more refreshed for a woman who is pushing 800.