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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (July 15, 2011)
JULY 15. 2011 ISU M M ER IU P H 0L S T E R Y SALE SEïîUl thearts- W W W .J U S T O U T .C O M A Slow Dance for Fast Times John Cameron Mitchell brings NYC’s hottest party, and .a faerie-inspired vision, to the Rose City BY NICK MATTOS # open daily 11 -6 Sunday 12-5 c a llig a ris natuzzi nuevo cam erich gus m odern soho co n ce p t later ligne pure bdi jesp er greenington eilersen 1829 nw 25th avenue T h e re ’s no place like hip. “I wrote my first song this week,” John Cameron Mitchell explains, excitement in his voice. For someone who’s proven himself as a director, actor, producer and dancer, and who is perhaps most famous for writing and directing the story of a transgender rock musician named Hedwig, he sounds surpris ingly pleased by this recent musical develop ment. “A friend of mine encouraged me,” he continues, “but I’ve never really written a song before. There’s always something new that can come out of you.” Innovation and surprise, with a little help from your friends—exactly the vibe that Mitchell cre ates at his celebrated New York City party Mattachine. On August 6, Portlanders will get a taste of how innovative old school can be when Mitchell brings the party, and its vision of ethical and creative homo culture, With this intense undercurrent of nostal to Mississippi Studios. gia, some young queers may think that Mat Three years ago, Mitchell teamed up tachine sounds a bit like your father’s gay with Justin Bond, PJ DeBoy and Paul Daw dance night. Au cotitraire, asserts Mitchell. son to start Mattachine as an underground, “You know, there’s this sort of ageist thing in unadvertised party at the nation’s oldest gay the gay world that gets on our nerves,” he bar, Julius in New York City. The party explains, which runs counter to the party’s quickly gained a devout following for its stated intent of “promoting ethical gay cul distinctively creative vibe, unlike anything ture everywhere.” But what exactly is Mitch else in the scene at the time. “We at M at ell’s notion of ethical gay culture? “It’s just tachine have an old- promoting a good vibe— “It’s just promoting a good school style—we play a respecting everybody, all lot of old music, kind of vibe— respecting every ages, all genders, making keep it mostly pre-1984 up your own gender, keep body, all ages, all gen with a little new stuff too, ing it relaxed,” he says. but we avoid club music,” ders, making up your own “That’s the ethical part— he explains. “It’s a Ma everybody is welcome, so gender, keeping it relaxed. donna-free and Gaga-free please be friendly. Get off zone. We play a lot of old That’s the ethical part— your phone! Look people soul and country and in the eye!” everybody is welcome, so classic rock, New Wave. Mitchell continues: We ll even play LCD please be friendly. Get off “Being queer is a privilege Soundsystem once in a in that you have to ques your phone! Look people in while, but we avoid the tion everything you’re told. clichés of gay bardom.” You see a lot of queer peo the eye!” One of the most un -JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL, ple questioning less and usual elements of Mitch ON MATTACHINE less. Unfortunately, the ell’s devotion to the old price of acceptance is me school is shown through a dance that many diocrity, which is better than the way it was haven’t swayed through since junior high. but eventually there’s going to be as many gay “My specialty is slow dancing,” he explains, Republicans as there are straight Republicans. “which is something a lot of gay people—or Selfishness is a trait that humans have a prob anyone really, nowadays—just didn’t experi lem with. So, the ethical part is self-respect, ence unless they were 13 and perhaps danc and respect for others—not judging, not cor ing with someone that they didn’t want to ralling yourself into a category. No sheeplike dance with. I’m rediscovering and reclaim mentality that says that you need to identify ing the slow dance, which was very impor yourself with endless thumping music, or the tant to me as a 13-year-old deejaying in my haircut that you have, or your body hair, or basement, playing Barry Manilow and Teddy your size. Those things are based on fear.” Pendergrass and then bumping up to Boston With his talk of fearlessness and remak- and the Sylvers." ing gay culture into something loving and MARK TUSK JULruc AUGUST 11 John C am eron M itchell (center) in the DJ booth at Mattachine in NYC with PJ DeBoy and Amber Martin. ethical, Mitchell sounds remarkably like his hero, Harry Hay. “I’ve always been very in terested in him,” he says of the early gay rights activist who was a founding member of the Mattachine Society. “I never met him, but strangely I did go to his memorial, which was very beautiful, and met his partner of many decades [John Burnside]. John told a story about their relationship: Every night before they went to bed, Harry would tell him that he loved him. On the last night before he died, Harry couldn’t speak, but he told him the same thing with his eyes. John described it as ‘unendurable,’ ‘an unendur able love,’ which was a strange way to put it, but it’s made me fascinated with him.” Beyond the tenderness of Hay as a lover, Mitchell also appreciates the great variety of other roles Hay played throughout his life. “He had so many guises,” he says, “and I re ally appreciate that he’s one of the American heroes that we won’t hear being recognized because he was queer. He won’t get the sort of recognition that women’s suffrage activ ists or civil rights activists get because he was queer.” One guise of Hay’s that has proven par ticularly influential to Mitchell was his role as founder of the Radical Faeries. Mitchell has been involved with the Faerie community for decades, and cites the Faerie sensibility as a major inspiration behind 2006’s sex comedy Shortbus. The idea for the tour even came through the Faeries: Mitchell and his Mat tachine mates (including Portland’s own Amber Martin) brought the West Village party down to a Radical Faerie sanctuary last
