Clubbing Identities
Still of Marissa dancing at an unnamed club
If there is one thing I learned studying in Berlin, it is that clubbing is more than just a fun thing to do on the weekends, it is a lifestyle; one that is about more than just drugs and alcohol, but finding connection. Whether it be to music, people, or even the self, clubbing is simultaneously an escape and a return. When you dance with no inhibitions, life has meaning.
Now, I’m not going to be like one of those Burning Man ravers who claim spending a week in the desert, apart from their polycule, doing ayahuasca and getting dreads (even though they're white) really allowed them to “find themselves,” but I will say: clubbing in Berlin really does force you to confront what is an act and what is authentic.
Like any clubbing culture, Berlin has a set of norms or rules that are associated with going out. Once I decided to study abroad there, my phone, like Big Brother, began directing endless amounts of Berlin influencers onto my Instagram explore page, each certain they contained the ultimate guide on how to get into clubs. Their lists typically consisted of rules like: Dress in all black; Memorize the DJ list; Don’t smile or seem drunk; and of course, my favorite: Be Yourself.
This last one always seemed a bit oxymoronic to me, but I do think there is truth to it, especially if you disregard all the other rules. But of course, concerned with getting into a club, I followed suit, like every other American tourist and adorned myself in black, spent half an hour memorizing some DJ’s discography, and exerting my bitchiest of RBFs. And I got into the club. But after spending the entire night engaging in mind-numbing conversations about drugs and techno and playing who-hated-high-school-most with straight men playing queer dress-up and aspiring DJs, I thought: maybe they should have rejected me at the door.
Me on my first night clubbing in Berlin :3
I hated clubbing in the states. I always felt slightly out of place. Sometimes I felt too queer, like I always stuck out amongst the girls in jeans and their signature “black going out top” or men in their flannel shirts and backwards baseball hats. Other times it felt like everyone went clubbing for the sole purpose of going home with some stranger they met on the dance floor. And, sometimes “Party in the USA” would play and everyone would enthusiastically put their hands up in the air while I willed a stampede of drunk twenty-something year olds to trample my body with their synchronized dancing.
When I go to a club, all I want to do is dance. I want to dance like a crazy person. I want to dance so hard there are literal beads of sweat dripping down my face and the soles of my thrifted shoes come off. I really do think there is something spiritual in dancing. My roommate in community college would often hold private dance parties in our room whenever we were stressed or sad or happy. It’s a release! But at every club I went to, it seemed like people were holding back. I even held back, self-conscious that my dancing was too much.
At this club in Berlin, I found myself sitting on the outskirts, hyper-analyzing the way everyone was moving. Berliners dance, that’s not the problem. It’s not like clubs in America where people lightly sway in a circle of their friends, occasionally hitting a slutty drop to the floor. The dance floor is for everyone. But everyone was dancing the same way: erratically hopping from one foot to the other, flailing their arms like they were breakdancing.
Sitting on the couches, I realized it wasn’t just the dance moves–everyone was dressed the same too, was doing the same drugs, obsessing over the same music. It’s like the monotony of the American clubbing scene had followed me to Berlin, just in a cooler, gayer way.
Me on my last night clubbing in Berlin–eight hours before my flight back to the states
I still enjoyed clubbing in Berlin, but I hated that I felt like I had to put on a persona in order to go to one. I had to act like a raver I most certainly was not. I had to wear all black which is just not me. I only own three articles of black clothing and they were beginning to reek of stale cigarette smoke and desperation. I had forgotten the cardinal rule of being myself.
I hate to turn this story into one about a boy, but in a way, my hinge date totally changed my perspective on clubbing. A German DJ and resident Berliner, Anton took me to Berlin’s “underground” for our first date (his words, not mine). He was straight edge sober and introduced me to the necessity of Club-Mate while clubbing, the German version of Yerba Mate that came in a huge glass bottle and tasted like unsweetened green tea and feet.
Around one in the morning, we arrived at a nondescript office building in the middle of an industrial part of Berlin. I carried with me my bouncer anxiety, afraid that my outfit wasn’t “Berlin” enough and I’d face the embarrassment of rejection in front of my hot date. But the bouncer barely even looked at me. All he did was check the inside of my bag before ushering us into the club. For a fee of fifteen euro–on the cheaper side for Berlin club entry–we were let into this single room club on the fourth floor of what I can only assume was an abandoned coworking space. At the door we were given a lecture on the ethos of this unnamed club: the bathrooms were for shitting, pissing, and fucking. Drugs are to be done on the dance floor and shared amongst everyone.
Not once did I get the looksie upsie downsie from anyone at this club. No one was trying to assess my outfit or my vibe to see if I belonged here. No one really cared. It was a huge sigh of relief. Anton and I, fueled on nothing but Club-Mate, danced like lunatics until eight in the morning, solidifying that as the longest first date I’ve ever been on. On the dance floor, it didn’t even feel like time was moving. I genuinely did get lost in the music, which wasn’t harsh techno, but disco beats. I danced with no inhibitions. And thank God, Anton did too. He danced like a loose spaghetti noodle; like nothing I’d seen at any of the other clubs I’d been to. In a way, he inspired me to stop analyzing the way everyone else was moving and dance the way I dance.
I finally understood the “be yourself” rule. If you enter a club as yourself, then you know when the vibe is not for you, allowing you to go somewhere else, try again, until you find the place that fits who you are. It is not about the clothes you wear or the persona you try to purport; at the unnamed club, there were queers in slutty outfits, dudes in button up shirts, people in gym shorts and a tank top. It wasn’t about what we were wearing, it was about our collective love for dancing like freaks and listening to good music.
More stills of Marissa dancing. My literal muse 4ever
