Fusion Festival

At my first official show in Berlin, which took place in the topsy-turvy venue Madame Claude, I was approached by a staff member of Fusion Festival and offered a chance to perform at the 2014 Festival. At the time, I had no idea what Fusion was about, the only thing I knew was that my flight home was scheduled to depart half a month beforehand, so I paid little mind to the invitation. As I continued to perform around Berlin however, more and more people were telling me I should stick around for Fusion Festival and that my music would be really well received there. So finally, I looked up the fest to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out, I had been given the opportunity to perform the equivalent of Germany’s SXSW or Lollapalooza. Fusion Festival is a huge artistic undertaking with incredible underground musicians, fantastical playgrounds of art and lighting installations, 60,000 attendees, all vegetarian/vegan food vending, and completely devoid of corporate sponsoring and commercial advertising. Oh yea, it happens to take place on a former Russian military airfield outside of Berlin, so stages are mixed in with bunkers. Needless to say, once I realized the scope of the Festival, I decided to stick around and changed my flight. Fun fact: On my flight from JFK to TXL, I had the good sense to keep my plane blanket for just in case purposes. Upon my arrival in the very real chill of Berlin & Scandinavia’s springtime months, I repurposed my airplane blanket to act as a warm & cozy poncho. When I decided to stay for Fusion, I repurposed my plane poncho yet again to make a cut-out and yarn-stitched Alexa Dexa banner. (Don’t worry, there was still enough plane blanket to keep the poncho too, it’s just an un-doubled version!)

My large-scale, outdoor multi-day festival debut was at 9pm on Thursday, June 26th 2014 at the Wiedendom Stage. For those of you who dream up set lists of your favorite bands, here was mine for the momentous occasion:

1. Something for Plastic Ballerinas to Dance to
2. Atomic Bridges (For Cellular Lovers)
3. The Seashore
4. Nestling
5. The Only Thing Left
6. Leave
7. Speed It Up (Now)
8. Heart Failure Will Send You to the Morgue
9. Cartography
10. Nomads
11. Shadow Shadow
12. Slingshot
13. Skipping Lanterns (Mikey D Remix)

The best part of performing a festival like Fusion is that the afterparty lasts for another 3 days of nonstop music, films, art, and camping. Most of the time you could find me chilling in the cinema watching documentaries, at Cherry-O-Kie, which consisted of some fabulous drag queens doing backup dancing and vocals for karaoke participants singing intense diva classics, exploring amazing musical acts inside huge structures that somehow still felt entirely intimate, or wandering through my surroundings since the daytime and nighttimes were so drastically different from each other. Once the sun faded past the horizon and the lights went up, you may as well have been inside a dream.