BrusselsNannyy Diaries: NUIT BLANCHE

The idea of Nuit Blanche first started in Paris, but has now caught on in many other big cities in Europe. Basically, it is an all-night festival showing off art, music, film, photography and theater from Belgium and the rest of Europe. Starting at 7 pm, exhibitions open all across the city center, many of them outside, while others in Palaces and museums. For example, there was this ping pong table set up by the stairs to the Palace where a sound was hooked up to the table and paddles, so that when two people played, every time the ball hit the paddle or the table, it made a different electronic echoing sound. But the sound depended on how hard you hit the ball and where it bounced. Very cool.

We then went up into the church in the palace, where some electronic art with lasers and lights was being shown off, using the church’s architecture and statues as props. The lasers controlled the lights, and whenever the laser was pointed at a bust of an angel or something, it lit up, along with some spooky, tinkling sound. The paintings on the ceiling would light up as well. It was just like stepping into some creepy, sci-fi movie set.

Next, we walked into the main palace, and as we climbed the marble staircases, we could hear the sounds of animals from a safari. Monkeys, lions, birds.. It was the strangest feeling, but it still somehow felt like everything went together. Other exhibitions included a projector casting light on a bush of a dog running (very strange), a live horror movie, where real “zombies” (actually quite scary looking people...one jumped out at me and I almost peed myself) would creep around this black box you sit inside. We also came across a Spanish/African food area, where a bunch of tents with hot, homemade food was being sold. IN one of the tents, an African man and some of his friends where dancing to some drum beat African music while serving the food, and it was just so catchy that Antonia and I had to join in on the dancingJ

Another really cool exhibition was in this old factory/cement house with graffiti all over it. Inside techno music was blasting, with two screens on opposite sides of the giant room. On one screen was a close-up video of what looked like silly putting bouncing around, and then other scream had random silhouettes of little things, like a butterfly, alphabet letters, a chapstick container… We were all very confused until we worked out way to the front of the crowed and saw two speakers laying on their backs, one with a piece of gooey looking white stuff bouncing around inside the crater of the front of the speaker from the hard vibrations of the music pounding through. A video camera was set up just above the speaker, pointing down on the blob bouncing around. Watching the blob, I saw how it was actually kind of squirming around, changing shapes in time to the pounding music. The other speaker was filled with a bunch of random plastic things…a plastic butterfly, a chapstick, many little alphabet letters, a dragonfly, a paperclip… So many random little things. Another camera was filming this speaker. I watched in a trance as the little objects sprang around in the crater of the speaker to the music. A little boy came over to take a peak and then proceeded to add some alphabet letters to the mix. He then touched the blob, which made me want to try it. I stuck my finger out and poked it. It felt surprisingly hard, but left some white residue on my finger…

Later we went to the 5 big parties of Nuit Blanche, located in different venues throughout the city center. The first party we went to Was called PURE FM SNOOZE, and was at the casino and played more radio music, from today’s modern hits, to American and French oldies. There, Antonia met up with a “friend”—a 30 year old guy she met at a record store a few weeks ago when trying to buy her ticket for a techno concert we went to together. This guy was like the perfect specimen of a Brussels mish-mash. His name was Pablo and his mom is German, his dad is from Chile, but he has lived in Brussels his whole life, going to French schools, reading American comic books and watching American movies, and speaking German with his mom and Spanish with his Dad. He therefore speaks 5 languages fluently (somehow he also knows Flemish). And this kind of person is not uncommon here in Brussels. You could even say these very international mixtures of people are the majority in the city.

So, after we had enough of dancing to radio hits, we left and walked down the crowded streets of Bourse, drunk people everywhere, from university age to 75 year old couples. We headed into the Galleries de la Reine, a long street with many little shops, and the whole thing covered with a giant ceiling of glass. We went inside the little cinema there, to a party called Sonic Cinema. It wasn’t you’re usually “party”, with loud music, lights, and lots of people dancing. It was simply a very small, old movie theater playing a very, very old German film, “The Golem”, made in 1920. It takes place in 16^th-centruty Prague, and is about a giant clay man (the Golem) that a Jewish rabbi creates and brings to life using sorcery in order to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution. However, the Golem becomes evil and terrorizes the town. It is a silent film, with stark black and white contrast, and is considered the 1920 “Horror Masterpiece.” I know all this because I sat next to Pablo in the theater, and he was a film major at the university and had to study this film, as well as many others like it. He finds them extremely interesting and said to me, “This is the real stuff, not that kitschy “fake film” like Eat, Pray, Love or something. J

He actually just finished making his own “film”, a short trailer for the Sound of Belgium Festival. (http://vimeo.com/50306726). Apparently the world-premiere of his actual film is on October 20^th at the Film Festival in Ghent. Pretty impressive..

Pablo has recently been studying how Techno music started in Belgium. Not many people know it, but all electro, techno and everything else related actually started here in this tiny country. That is why they now have the biggest, craziest electronic music festival/concert in the world in Belgium, called “Tomorrowland.” Tickets sell out in under 2 seconds, and are about 200 euros each… But it still draws a huge crowd! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWb5Qc-fBvk&feature=g-hist (This is the official after-movie of the festival last year..it's 20 minutes long, but just watch the first 5 minutes and you'll get the idea).

After the “cinema party” we headed to the biggest party in the city, the Boombox Party. It was held in a huge room with a DJ on the stage at the very end. By the time we got there (around 2am) the place was packed. Loud techno music was blasting. We pushed ourselves into the middle of the crowed and started dancing like maniacs to the pounding music. Let me just tell you that here in Belgium, the house/techno music is like no other. It has a very strong, banging beat above the base that is just so different from any other techno. Pablo started telling me about each song as it changed, kind of like my personal Belgian techno guide on the dance floor. We went back into the early 90’s techno, which I actually liked better than today’s…it’s a little bit softer. And every time a voice came on under the pounding beat, he knew all the words (even though the lyrics were in English, I could never understand them because they were so random...for example, “He’s falling through the clouds of diamonds into your eyes” or something like that. I guess if half the audience doesn’t really understand English, it’s fine to have these strange lyrics. But Pablo, he knew and understood every word, and admitted it is just gibberish, but also insisted that it is all part of just feeling the music and it’s affects. I thought, Okay, I guess that works.. I mean, I could definitely feel its affect in my eardrums:P Hehe but really, it was good for techno…like it made me want to dance and jump around. One song he seemed to really like came on (he started jumping around like crazy and closing his eyes, really feeling the music…people tend to try and get the full experience when listening to techno here, it’s like “having a story being told to you”, as Pablo put it, with each song being a piece of this story), and it had an intro with some girl saying something about blue skies and butterfly’s and falling (he of course knew every word). When the intro was over he said to me, that was the sound of a girl describing what she sees the first time she is tripping on LSD. Wonderful.

He also taught me some special techno dance moves, and I was having so much fun that before I knew it is was 4am and I really needed to get home. Was an unforgettable Nuit BlancheJ

Here are some pictures from the night. Sorry that they are not the best quality, I only had my cell phone with me. I also took a lot of videos, but unfortunately they take forever to load onto my blog. Maybe I’ll post them on fb, because they are really cool!