Saturday night a friend and I went to go dancing at Public Assembly. The DJ was Prosumer, from Berghain (they say “Panorama Bar”, I admit I’m still trying to understand the difference. Aficionados know these things. Panorama Bar is inside of Berghain).

I’m told that some clubs in New York have been trying to have Berghain nights, such as this. They imitate some elements of Berghain, meaning the play late and bring in DJs from Berghain. I think to enjoy these nights you need to accept them as their own thing. They are a little disappointing if you go expecting something like Berghain.

Berghain is arguably the most famous club in the world right now. It started life as a sex club for gay men. Wikipedia gives this history:

Berghain has a strong reputation for decadence and hedonism; a New Zealand Herald article describes “people openly indulging in sexual acts”[6] inside the club, and the basement contains a dark room specifically set aside for that purpose.[2][7][8] Photography is strictly forbidden.[2][9] The door policy is selective and mostly random, but there are no VIP entrance or VIP areas. Special guestlist is restricted to a few guests for each dj and maximally two guests for each staff member. As a special feature, no mirrors or reflecting surfaces can be found anywhere in the club. Like many Berlin clubs, Berghain hosts extremely long events; a Philip Sherburne column in Pitchfork Media describes a Carl Craig set that began at 3:00 Sunday afternoon and continued until the club’s ending time.[2][8] Jesse Rose has described “Entering Panorama Bar is like going back in time to an age when people went out to really party.” [10]

Berghain is the reincarnation of the “legendary” club Ostgut (1998–2003).[2][4][5] This club itself emerged out of a men only fetish club night, called “Snax”, which was held in different locations before it found its permanent home at the new club “Ostgut” as a part of a new concept. Quickly the “Ostgut” developed into a focal point of the Berlin techno-subculture since the venue was now open for all genders on regular nights except on those “Snax” club nights six to eight times a year. “Ostgut” closed down on January 6, 2003 following a 30-hour farewell event, and the former railway warehouse which housed it was subsequently demolished. Berghain opened in 2004.[5][11] The name “Berghain” is a composite of the names of the two quarters, which flank the building south and north: Kreuzberg (former West Berlin) and Friedrichshain (former East Berlin). “Snax” is still held once a year on Holy Saturday in the main room (Berghain), while only the Panorama Bar is open for a mixed crowd.

That maybe makes it sound more exciting than it really is. The night I went, I saw no sex acts, to my great disappointment. But then, I did not wander into those dark rooms reserved for sex. So I guess I wasn’t looking.

I realize this is something of a cliche, but Berghain was somewhat life changing for me. I’ve never before had so much fun dancing. It was the freest environment I’ve experienced, for something like dance.

Anyway, my friend and I went dancing on Saturday night. (Biking at 2 AM in Brooklyn is huge fun, the streets are mostly empty, and the main roads now have bike lanes. It was like being in a European city.) We were going to head over there at midnight, but we were each busy with various knitting projects, so we did not leave till 2 AM (technically, this was Sunday morning). We biked over and then danced till 6 AM. (I wore an earplug in my right ear, though at first I thought the music was not too loud. But then the next morning my left ear hurt, so I knew it had been a good idea to wear at least one earplug. In fact, I probably should have worn 2. I used to hate the fact that these shows were so loud, but I’ve come round to liking how loud they are — the music should make your bones shake, and it needs to be dangerously loud to do that. The best thing to do is wear ear plugs, and then one can safely dance in front of speakers that are blasting your body with sound waves.)

A few impressions: the music was good, but the sound was muffled. There were 100 people packed into a small room. The vibe was that of a party at a friends house, if the friend had a large apartment. At times, there were too many people who were not dancing. In particular (as my friend suggested), a lot of the audience was heterosexual, and this was a problem. At Berghain they’ve people at the door who turn away a lot of the heterosexuals, so that the crowd stays largely queer, and I think this contributes to the feeling of freedom one feels at Berghain. Straight culture has depended on gay culture at least since Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, but you see it vividly at Berghain, or by comparison, at these fake Berghain nights in New York. At Public Assembly, you had a lot of straights who were standing around, drinking, judging, engaging in drama with girlfriends/boyfriends. There is a kind of status competition that creeps in when the room is mostly straights, and you’re in New York. It’s less free.

Having said all that, I still had huge fun. For me, it’s like a form of meditation to get lost in dancing for a few hours, listening to good music. And dancing till dawn. That is part of it. I understand at Berghain people will go Friday night and stay till Sunday morning. There are no windows near the dance areas at Berghain, so one can lose track of time, you don’t know if it is day or night. My friend once went to Berghain on a Sunday morning, and she thought it would be dull, because who goes to a dance club on a Sunday morning, but no, she says it was very good, because the only people there were the core crew that was staying for the whole weekend.

We left at 6 AM. The sun was just coming up. The streets were empty. Brooklyn is beautiful at that hour. It was cold, but I was warm from dancing, so I felt comfortable though I was not wearing a jacket.

We both had our bikes, but we wanted to talk, to compare notes, so we walked with our bikes. We’d both had roughly the same impression of the evening, its strengths and weaknesses.

I’m told that New York had a great dance scene in the 70s and 80s. It does not have one now. Great artistic moments are always fleeting. There is only one Berghain, but it will probably be gone in 5 years. No beautiful scene lasts, the circumstances that allow it change quickly. Berghain is international, and New York is less so. The USA is afraid of terrorists, which means it is afraid of everything foreign. In Europe, a person in Barcelona might finish work at 5 PM, then get on an airplane and fly to Berlin, dance at Berghain from Friday night till Sunday afternoon, then fly home, then go to work on Monday. Cheap airfare and a lack of international boundaries is part of what makes Berghain amazing. Also, cheap rent — the great art scenes tend to be in once great cities that are currently in economic distress, which would describe New York in the 70s and 80s and Berlin right now. Berghain is enormous, it would be very difficult to have a club that big in New York City. The rent would be too high.

And yet, I keep hoping. I’d like to find more places in New York that allow for that kind of dancing. I hope more places keep trying to imitate Berghain.