**** FINALLY: KICKING OFF SPRING OF 2022 WITH A DAY AND NIGHT CELEBRATING OF THOUGHT & PLEASURE, QUEERNESS, DRAG, DANCE, MUSIC, JOY! AND LOVE. A PROPER *FESTIVITY* IN AN OLD LIBRARY(1). A DOME. 1.400 PAX. ALL WELCOME! ****

Karmaklubb* invites you to learn pleasures for body and mind through observation, participation, and experience. In ancient days, January was a time for carnivalesque ↗︎ jester ↗︎ parties(2); a celebration x genders, patriarchy, style, everything. A joyful exception celebrating so-called non-sense. In 2022: We bend: January becomes May. Dance in this oasis of joy. A house party, queerness and drag, vogue, dance, thought and pleasure; a 15-hour greatness with people from around the globe. The closest you get to a ‘↗︎ berghainian’(3) temple in Oslo. Familiar in its Neo-classicist style; but swap power plant with public library — knowledge, books, smell of paper, typography, for the occasion also plants; skip the hedonism, but keep the escapism, sexiness, and lust. (Suddenly the public library is not that different from the club, after all.) Enter the ‘House of ↗︎ Joie’ (sic)(4) Yes.

*** FULL PROGRAMME BELOW!!! ***

In tight amorous partnership with ↗︎ Det Gamle Biblioteket / The Old Library / ↗︎ TheOsloWay. Supported by ↗︎ Oslo Pride. In collaboration with the queer magazine ↗︎ BLIKK.

Timetable

Daytime, Avisrommet and main Library

• ↗︎ Workshop by Mabell Holand, 12:00–14:00: ENTRANCE FREE (age 16–25)
• ↗︎ Queer wine, DJ, and mingle, 15:00–19:00: Collaboration with Vin John with special guest Oransjevin, DJ set by Espen Iden: ENTRANCE FREE, ID 18
• Photo installation (comissioned) by Paulina Tamara (all day)

Night programme main Library, 19:00–03:00:

• “What is Ballroom? Subjective experiences from the Ballroom scene”, 19:00–21:00: Conversation with Cassie Brødskive (moderator), Frida Marida, Father Diesel Meraki, and Mother Cassandra Meraki.
• Serving by Funky Fresh Foods from 19:30 (as long as it lasts)
• Show: Drag, Burlesque, and in-between (3 Chapters), 21:00–22:00: Cassie Brødskive and Elektra Puzzz with Briar The Vaude Villain, Tanja McKenzie, Victoria Fierce, and Unik by Christer André; Phoenix D’vine and Knockout Noire; Frida Marida.
• Dance performance, 22:00: Sterud/Kongsness, Flirt/Flørt (Butch Tribute)
• LIVE Techno delights with visuals, 23:00–24:00: Bendik Baksaas & Daniel Mahal
• Dance performance, midnight: Jorge & Thomas (Jorge Lera and Thomas Johansen), PASTe = paste past experiences
• Group dance performance and DJ set, 24:00–01:00: Kiki House of Meraki & Oslo Ballroom Community with Father Diesel Meraki, Mother Cassandra Meraki, Thor Meraki, Karim Meraki, Sergio Valentino, Banjee 007, and Celina 007; DJ: ONKOD MUTATIONS / Dahir Doni
• Club, 01:00–03:00: DJ set by Thorgerdur Johanna

Night programme basement, 20:00–03:00:

• Eurovision Song Contest 2022, Grand Final, live stream, 20:00–01:00
• DJ set by Bendik Baksaas, approx. 01:00–02:00
• DJ set by Espen Iden, 02:00–03:00

Cinema, looping, 19:00–24:00:

• Marte Gunnufsen, Queen! and Metamorphosis (2018)
• Ergi presents, featured artists: Elísabet Birta Sveinsdtóttir (ISL/DNK), ↗︎ Felix Thorsen Katzenelson (DNK), ↗︎ Filip Vest (DNK), ↗︎ Mia Maria Robsahm (NOR), ↗︎ Nina Eriksson (NOR/SWE), Saga Bok (SWE), ↗︎ Sigrid Lerche (DNK), and Yummi (NOR), edited by Marin Håskjold (Ergi).

↗︎ *** TICKETS HERE!!! *** (ID 18*; CC early bird NOK 300 / from 4 March NOK 350). ↗︎ FB event here. Read about it in BLIKK ↗︎ here (Engesbak, 4 May), ↗︎ here (Bakke, 5 May), ↗︎ here (Engesbak, 10 May), and ↗︎ here (Bakke & Linseth, 15 May).

*** Neon sweaters made for the occasion ↗︎ here. Find a selection of the portfolio for the pre-campaign by eminence Julie Hrnčířová for Karmaklubb*, April 2022 ↗︎ here. ***

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1 The old library — Deichman — is Norway’s oldest public library, established in the 1780s, named after collector and miner Carl Deichman. This particular building, however, opened in 1933 at Hammersborg, Oslo and survived as the main library in town till 2019. You have already read that the building is dressed in Neo-classicists fashion, typical of its time. But it still lives, tonight, waited through the pandemic, before taking a longer spa next year.(1) The old library — Deichman — is Norway’s oldest public library, established in the 1780s, named after collector and miner Carl Deichman. This particular building, however, opened in 1933 at Hammersborg, Oslo and survived as the main library in town till 2019. You have already read that this particular building is dressed in neoclassicists fashion, typical of its time. But it still lives, tonight, waited through the pandemic, before taking a longer spa next year.

2 The jester appears in many shapes and variations, related are e.g. the fool or the more acrobatic skilled relative, the harlequin. However, the most common version of the jester today, is perhaps the Medieval one; with colourful and soft hats with pointy tips attached bells announcing its appearance. The jester is also an interesting character due to its play with norms, often using humour, even flamboyance. It is an in-between persona, and despite of class having access to the chateaus as well as the streets, even the court.

3 Berghain located on the border between Kreuzberg in West and Friedrichshain in the former Eastern Berlin is one of the most famous techno clubs in Europe. Originally a power plant for Vattenfall, built 1953–1954, totally starstrucking stone of an industrial concrete building, starting as a reincarnation of a club for gay men in the late 90s and early 00s (Ostgut; in the beginning growing out of the nomadic fetish club concept ‘Snax’) in 2004. The feeling of entering the legendary Berghain for the very first time for us was somewhat frightening, simultaneously sublime. The stairway up to a dance floor ’lifted’ almost 20 metres up in the middle of this construction of pure concrete and steel: The dark Berghain. Even one storage closer to heaven and you enter Panorama Bar. The old library got’em both.

4 oy (n.) c. 1200, ‘feeling of pleasure and delight’; c. 1300, ‘source of pleasure or happiness’, from Old French joie ‘pleasure, delight, erotic pleasure, bliss, joyfulness’ (11c.), from Latin gaudia ‘expressions of pleasure; sensual delight’, plural of gaudium ‘joy, inward joy, gladness, delight; source of pleasure or delight’, from gaudere ‘rejoice’, from PIE root *gau- ‘to rejoice’ (cognates: Greek gaio ‘I rejoice’, Middle Irish guaire ‘noble’). (Online Etymology Dictionary)