A circle is a shape, a system, a gathering, a place. It stands for a wholeness and harmony; of cycles and coexistence. A circular arrangement creates a space that is both inclusive and framed. It can be a closed curve of friends or players, of music, prayer, time. Creamcake has been invited to curate its own edition of the Spätschicht monthly free event series at Berlin’s Gropius Bau on August 7. Here, visitors are invited to linger, dance, and observe, or become part of the action in a circular scenography that envelops music, performance, and installation.
Happening as part of the exhibition space’s new live program, the immersive interdisciplinary event concerns itself with presence—what we share in the open, and what contradictions we endure. A selection of artists and performers, musicians and DJs, together represent an encompassing expression of intimacy, tenderness, and vulnerability, amid exhaustion, violence, and oppression. Cult interdisciplinary duo New Noveta continue their focus on labor and sociopolitical unrest and struggle in a new performance collaboration with artist Louis Backhouse and musician Sean Colum. The European premiere of Keioui Keijaun Thomas’s multimedia performance “Come Hell or High Femmes: The Dolls Rise” speaks to unbound and unreal journeys from the heart of the club, to the Middle Passage, to star-filled skies speaking a liberated future into existence.
Opposites meet in the orbit or a circle—hard and soft, comfort and discomfort, activity and passivity, sunrise and sunset. Lane Shi’s otay:onii solo music and performance project challenges the established norms of what defines classical and metal music by presenting them as acoustic piano and vocal arrangements. Larry’s DJ sets employ linguistic elements that do not communicate meaning but aim for raw emotional effect. Musician and vocalist Evita Manji brings their carefully-constructed practice of choral-led synthesis and sound design to create ever-growing sonic entities. There is no beginning nor end, only an eternal process of becoming and unbecoming. This “Spätschicht x Creamcake” event is not a spectacle, but an invitation to connect—with oneself, with others, with the moment—while sitting within a cycle of interpretation without end.
