 |
Rock| |
 |
Paraden
Love Parade
Berlin | Berlin | Germany
Location: Straße des 17. Juni
Event period: Feast of Corpus Christi
As the guests of the Café Kranzler came onto the terrace shaking their heads not managing to understand the noise and the jerking bodies, the pleasure of the ravers was at its highest level. At least, this is what the veterans of the Love Parade of 1989 say. In Berlin, this very first love parade was still without much importance. At best, it was merely the proof of the fact that there are more chaotic people living in this city than any where else. These people had nothing better to do on a Saturday in July, but jump up and down Kurfüstendamm to a deafening noise, calling it a political demonstration...
From year to year, however, the number of those crazy people increased to some hundred thousands. Just as the shop owners from the Kudamm started to dislike the whole spectacle considerably, the rest of the city began to like the whole thing quite a lot. It even publicly declared its affection by establishing an S-Bahnhof “Rave-Garden” to celebrate the day.
Gradually, even the criticism of the shop-owners ceased, for when these mad people charge about the Tiergarten they do at least a little shopping on the Kudamm too. And the possibility of irritating encounters during afternoon coffee has also become improbable. People are now prepared for the annual invasion.
The invasion becomes most visible on the day before the beginning of the parade at the Bahnhof Zoo. From noon on, special trains arrive there. Directly in front of the main entrance some people organise an open-air party, so that the new arrivals get the opportunity to do some warming-up for the three strenuous partying days. If you aren’t knowledgeable about these things you are, nevertheless, probably beginning to understand that the point of it all is to totally wear yourself out before the thing even gets started!
The most striking dancers look vigorous and streamlined – an impression intensified by their wrap-around sunglasses that lie straight on the skin, and sealing the eye – and as they whip their bodies about to the mechanical hissing and quick hammering beats of the music, the suspicion arises that if the heat were to increase a lot, steam might escape from the joints of those bodies.
A small group of local punks always observe the whole thing from a sceptical distance, and some dogs seem to have a trace of contempt on their mouth. But they look grey, in a bad mood and unhealthy, compared to those that throw themselves into this event.
Some elderly Berliners who came just to watch, are not really impressed: “These kind of happenings aren't anything new”, you can hear a lady say. On Saturday, Breitscheidplatz is full of young people, dressed and prepared for the night. And still the colourful torrent flows out of the Bahnhof Zoo.
Long before the actual beginning of the Parade, on “Straße des 17 Juni” the exhibition procession has started already. It is much more of a demonstration than the whole act of pushing and shoving afterwards. The strolling self-exhibitionists, with their bouncy walks, seem to declare, “it is summer, we are young and we will enjoy ourselves”. With rings in their navels and eyebrows, they wear plastic and rubber clothes and platform heels. Lavish decoration, severe, asexual looks, referee’s whistles, feather boas, erotic prima donnas, and seductive baby-dolls; alongside the parade, fathers are recording these electrifying affirmations of life with their video cameras. “We don't want to fool ourselves, I recognise that it does look quite sexy”, is the comment of one of them while operating his camera. He is even more excited, however, by the large number of people, declaring, “they say one million people will come, that is astonishing.”
The people from Berlin have consequently developed the tendency to favour superlatives. People from Berlin don't ask: “Is it beautiful? Is it useful?” They ask: “Is it the big best? Does it attract the most attention? Then, it is the best!”
The TV shows and the aerial perspective creates an impressing image: the gigantic twitching snake that is the Love Parade, starting at the Ernst-Reuter-Platz and reaching to the Brandenburger Tor and, in the centre all around the Siegessäule, a thick bulge, as if the snake had just eaten a rabbit. How easily the demonstration loses its distinction at its borders, can only be observed from the ground - how its fringes dissolve into little picnics – when this concentrated, synthetic, neon confusion settles upon on an otherwise, natural and untouched green ground creates a funny view – and how it all mutates into an indefinable folk festival. The TV says that this is the biggest youth meeting in the world, and it takes place only in Berlin. Once upon a time, the wall existed only in Berlin. It was coloured, too.
The first time, one hundred and fifty people jumped behind a Volkswagen bus along the Kudamm. This dynamic gathering soon realised that Berlin offered the perfect fertile ground for what they wanted to do. As far as Techno is concerned, for example, Berlin was the most active city in the whole Republic after the fall of the wall, for the tremendously run-down East Berlin provided an almost unlimited number of venues where the young people could satisfy their yearnings for electronic sounds. The old buildings and the new music made the perfect combination and it is here, in East Berlin, that all the underground clubs of the genre are located.
In Berlin, during this period, an especially high number of young people make a good living from what, outside the festival season, is simply their nocturnal entertainment; they become party organizers, bookers of DJ’s, and record label owners.
Once the festival is over, parties still go on in those clubs on Sunday evenings, but on the streets, the momentum ceases. Normal life, with a different kind of rhythm, once again takes over the city. Only single tracks, like a long line of taxis, in front of a courtyard in Kreuzberg, remind you of the recent presence of the Love Parade. When visitors disappear onto trains, somewhat dishevelled and teetering on wearing legs, and the coloured tide trickles away onto the autobahn, the account estimations begin to be calculated – the amount of waste created (200 tons), the extent of damage done to plant life (3000 bushes destroyed), and the amount of money made (200 million Marks). While these assessments, made as the last flames of the festival dwindle and die out, remain uncertain, one thing is for sure: the Love Parade will be back again next year.
more info about this topic...
http://www.loveparade.de
http://www.whatsonwhen.com/events/~15762.jml
http://www.sisol.de/kulturschock/artikel/A60705FEC1DA40EE899D3768335A838B.sisol
