Nancy

In November 2015 SMC Berlin was invited to be the closing event of the Neue Stücke festival at Théâtre de la Manufacture.

20:57: I enter the room. The atmosphere is gentle. I invite people to join my table.

22:57: I walk through the crowded room, hugging everyone, dressed as a woman – and no-one thinks this out of the ordinary.

What happened in between? Social Muscle Club. It’s hard to describe, but self-evident to experience. It’s a night, where anything can happen if you want it to. A room, where strangers connect. A space-time, where the public and the intimate merge, naturally.

It was a November night, not even a week before, when a few fanatics had fired shots through the streets of Paris. Ever since this bloody 13 November, we had all been standing together, but even so, everyone is looking anxiously at the person next to them. Not here though, not at SMC. It is so good to trust strangers, to hug, to comfort and to be comforted. Why can’t everything be as straightforward as it is at Social Muscle Club?

Initiated 2015

Knut Berger, Ronald Berger, Agathe Chion, Jill Emerson, Steve Heather, Till Rothmund, Jeremy Wade