Giant Disco Ball from Outer Space

I feel compelled to post about my night at the Sugar Factory, a club off the Leidseplein in Amsterdam. "Interactive Disco Opera" was the collaborative masterpiece of artist Eric Staller, filmmaker Miss T, and costumer Nepco. It was described as "Fellini-esque" in the paper, so I knew it would be surreal. But since I've never seen a Fellini movie myself, I wasn't sure what to expect. I will definitely go out and rent one now.

The theme of the night seemed to be alien B-movies from the 50s. When I walked in, they were showing the short film "Strip Tease on Mars", which was basically a gorgeous woman getting naked to 50s cocktail jazz on what seemed to be a desert planet, while eyeballs attached to long antennae quivered behind every rock. This was followed by a live saw harpist playing along to a film of vinyl records hovering above the Nemo & other obvious Amsterdam landmarks, a really clever localized send-up of the horrible special effects that make B-movies so fun to watch. Along those lines, I never realized what I was missing in life until I saw a cross-eyed Godzilla melting a toy windmill with his fiery breath in the wildly exciting action-horror short "Godzilla vs. Amsterdam".

There was also the Burka Boogie Woogie Band, where women dressed in burkas played in a band, with the burkas strategically fastened so that the shapes of the trumpet, trombones, bass, and other instruments poked out from the sides. One of my favorite pieces involved 4 women just standing still on the balcony in the darkness wearing beauty parlor helmets with lights that blinked in rhythm with the music; they looked like deep sea creatures. And there was a bizarro film featuring pink plastic breasts each moving separately, and then you were gradually made to realize that each breast was actually a woman wearing a huge plastic ball and a hat resembling a nipple. The grand finale, which was truly magnificent, involved 4 beautiful women in white glittering leotards, high heels, and disco ball helmets dancing around a shivering mass of silver, which eventually jelled (to the tune of "Last Dance") into an enormous disco ball man, about 3 times my height in diameter and at various times seeming about to roll off the stage into the transfixed audience.

Now that I'm typing all of this out, I realize...well...you really had to be there. There's just no way to describe it in a coherent way. It was abso-#$%@-ing incredible. I'm so going to all of Eric Staller's future disco operas. And you should too, if he ever comes to your city.

I can also highly recommend Hans Eijkelboom's photography, which is on exhibition now at Foam. Not nearly so dramatic, but also very interesting.