12.May 2022 – 14.May 2022
Transtronica Festival
Salon Queertronique celebrates its fifth anniversary with the TRANSTRONICA Festival, a 3-day music spectacle full of visionary trans artists. Salon Queertronique is a cultural and club project by DJ and musician Saeleen Bouvar and was created for the visibility of trans* musicians who together gave their version of queer music history. It has been a permanent part of the club series at Kampnagel since 2019. The TRANSTRONICA Festival is the first music festival with an all-trans* line-up. For three evenings, the audience has the opportunity to hear and see a handpicked selection of trans* musicians and celebrate visibility together, far from gender constructs. The salonnière Saeleen Bouvar will lead one of the most important music events of 2022.
Behind the idea of the music event was initially the lack of visibility of trans* femininities within club culture. No matter where, as is evident elsewhere in public misogynist and especially transmisogynist discourse, trans* femininity is situated in a realm of sexual debauchery and fetish. Even in the queer club scene, the topic of trans*visibility is not given a special status. It is accepted that no trans* DJs are known and thus the invisibility is explained, consolidated and morally legitimised. With the emergence of the salon, Saeleen Bouvar first became aware of the vastness and relevance of the topic, because it was precisely trans* people who were exiled from cultural memory. Already at the end of the 60s, trans*women of colour, through the Stonewall Riots, nullified the law banning same-sex dance partners and thus paved the way for the disco club. The whole disco movement emerged in the West, where trans*women fled from the military dictatorships of Latin America and Southern Europe. They were instrumental in shaping sexual openness within the aesthetic of the 70s, opening their own cabarets and travesty shows, from which many a pop producer was happy to draw inspiration for music videos for the wider public. It was a black trans* woman who established the house system of the ballroom scene. So trans* people have always been and still are indispensable to our club and music culture. So it's time to put the microphone back in their hands and give free rein to their voices, to hear their stories, their sounds, to experience their visions, their bodies in motion and to honour their existence that has been silenced for so long.
With TRANSTRONICA, salonnière Saeleen Bouvar celebrates her salon. In keeping with the old female salon culture, she has divided the three evenings into thematic sections. Each evening bears the name of a muse who symbolises an aspect of being trans*.
More infos about the festival on transtronica.com
A project within the framework of ACT (Art, Climate, Transition) funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union and the Alliance of the Internationale Produktionshäuser by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.