Clothing created from memory, but could also be that of modern ESC
Photo: Rolf Arnold
David Hasselhoff burned himself into the GDR stylus forever on New Year’s Eve in 1989/90. Almost nothing made the wall to slide as much as its singing is the myth.
But as early as 1968, in the middle of the Prague spring, Karel Gott’s “golden voice” overcame the limits of the political blocks. At that time he not only competed for Austria at the Eurovision Song Contest (West). Also at the intervision Song Contest (east) he went into competition for Czechoslovakia. In cooperation with dramaturge Markéta Hrehorová, the collective Boys* in Sync now buried herself to the radio archives to find out in “Interreurovision” this competition founded in Czechoslovakia in 1965.
It found that the former radio of the ČSSR had destroyed the whole material, but found what it was found in a German archive. However, it was only allowed to view the record of the 1968 competition for “data protection reasons”. Together, the performers who come from Norway, Czech Republic, Germany, Sweden and Denmark reconstructed the competition from their memory and try to describe everything in the residence of the Leipzig spectacle: The Marge Simpsur’s Hairstyle of the Ernste moderator, The purple carpet, which only looked dark gray in black and white, and the golden dress of the Finnish singer. While they are staggered with costumes one after the other, the text-image scissors continue to climb. Instead of fashion of the 60s, costume and stage designer Johanna Ralser from numerous gauntlets, zippers and neon-colored highlights designed an athletic wear, which could also come from an ingenious Eurovision appearance.
The participants in a fervent perform the European hit hits that have been selected for the ISC. Between the choreographies and glitter hats, the players interrupt their visible fun of performing in order to give the audience a political classification for intervision. The event was part of the political and cultural liberalization from the mid -1960s and in 1968 at its artistic highlight. For the first time, Western European countries had access to the format, the competition in Karlovy Vary became the first pan-European music contest. Eurovision made the east watch, but did not invite any artists from the east.
With the invasion of the troops of the Warsaw Treaty, both the Prague spring and intervision came to its abrupt end. The careers of the producers, directing and moderation were also not allowed. Similarly, the short revival of the competition in the Polish Solpot of Solpot, which was discontinued as a “counter-revolutionary” in the course of combating the Solidarność movement. As with the western ESC, the apolitical coat of paint was also hidden in the eastern ISC, a explosive discussion about international relations.
The current discussions about whether Israel should participate in the ESC and the anti -Semitic hostility against singer Eden Golan 2024 in Malmö negotiates only by proxy. Because in 1968 Spain won the ESC with the singer under Franco. She had had to step in at short notice because the originally planned Catalan contribution did not match the nationalist cultural policy of the dictatorship. At that time they discussed in critical circles how Massiel’s appearance (with the song “la, la, la”) had to be countered. Should the musicians be separated from their nation? Was it enough to just turn away? Or does the whole ESC have to be boycotted?
Although the Boys* in Sync have come to the verge of the intervision song contest, their love for the ESC repeatedly breaks out. Three times they tuned the Banger »Euphoria«, the winning title of the Swedish Loreen from 2012. They also put him in the mouth of Karel – and tell of their childhood memories of the event. Only the Czech dramaturge Markéta Hrehorová remained still in the rehearsals when the team started the choreographies and hits of the past 30 years. The fact that the Czech Republic only fought into the final in 2016 could be a relic of the long exclusion of Eastern Europe. With enough camp and glamor, the collective manages such an entertaining negotiation of music and politics that combine European past and present.
Next performances: January 31, 1.2., 4.2., Residence in the spinning mill, each 8 p.m.