WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
By Danica Lo
November 30, 2006 -- ONCE upon a time, there was an '80s and '90s downtown New York culture where Limelight's promoter reigned supreme, Danceteria was the place to be, and St. Marks Place did not have a Chipotle.
It was a time and place where men could be men (in drag, that is) and women may or may not have been born that way.
But what happened when these clubkids - those crazy-looking young people who made the city's nightlife legendary post-punk and pre-Giuliani - got older? Answer: They grew up into clubadults - creative forces to be reckoned with in fashion, media, film, art and dance who still like nothing more than a good party.
And thanks to a revival in both maximalist clubwear and New Romantics on the catwalk, those who love to get their freak on (emphasis on freaky) are having a moment again.
The growing fame and influence of designers like Gareth Pugh, a favorite of Anna Wintour who constructs clothing from, among other things, enormous balls; emergence of more and more dress-up mainstream bands like the Scissor Sisters, AFI, and Panic! At the Disco; and growing interest in early-'80s fashion has created a great and unmet demand for nightlife excitement.
Enter Susanne Bartsch, a 25-year veteran of the downtown party scene, who co-hosts Tuesday nights at Flatiron club Room Service with Kenny Kenny, one of the most legendary club personalities in New York. The main room hosts performances - "That's old school," Bartsch says. "We have all sorts of shows - artists, whatever, showcasing their talent" - and the adjoining strip club entertains its regular suited clients in one section while Bartsch and Kenny Kenny's dancers gyrate on spare poles.
Bartsch, who created the legendary Love Balls of the late '80s and early '90s, returned to party planning after a long absence from the nightclub circuit. "I left the scene before it was worn out," Bartsch says. About a year ago, while producing events for other people, "It was becoming very hard to see everybody," she says. "I wanted people I liked to come over and hang out - I wanted to see all my friends in one go."
Crashing through the complacent lull of nightlife in recent years, Bartsch's Tuesdays, which recently relocated from now-defunct club Happy Valley, is one of the most successful nights in town - so successful, in fact, that watching choreographer Jonte perform in the main room this week was akin to rush hour on the IRT.
And, just like 20 years ago, going out is all about the look. "What I do is definitely in the spirit of those days," Bartsch says. "But it's not those days, you know? Things are very androgynous now. And what I like about my parties is that you can come that way or not - it's not that you have to be dressed up."
Still, a quick glance around the room proves the maximalism of years bygone hasn't vanished. After all, this caliber of preening has been around in New York since the 1970s. These days, the handcrafted individualism demonstrated by Bartsch's friends and patrons flies squarely in the face of current Hollywood-stylist-driven mumbo-jumbo and investment-banker-style bottle-service bars.
"It has to be real," Kenny Kenny says. "And the music has to be modern. We're not about re-creating the '80s - we're about having modern music, modern performance, modern looks. It's modern and mixed. New York is the only place in the world you can live like this."
