Divine Madness

from Attitude Magazine

Not since the pre-Adam Rickett's Nicky Tilsley was expelled from his soap opera haven after a newspaper's exposure of him being caught smoking a big fat reefer at Altrincham Ice rink, Greater Manchester, has there been such a high octane controversy on ice. Get this: who should be taking to the rink, in the manner of such exuberant predecessors as that primetime prancer Robin Cousins, balletic newsreader types Torvill and so-called Dean and opponents!-hold-onto-your-kneecaps! Britneyish ice witch Tonya Harding? Who? Who? Who? Situationist artstrel The Divine David. That's who.
   What the jiggins is this folly? The DD - to eyeliner as Robert Smith is to lipstick; to cabaret as Yoko Ono was to Fluxus; to the smiles and cheers gay 'community' as Fred West was to his offsprings - is going the way of the Disney Spectacular. And how fantastic does this sound? He's doing it accompanied by 25 young females dressed - you guessed! - as himself. Performing Busby Berkeley style dance manoeuvres. To a soundtrack that will probably be Siouxsie Sioux or Napalm Death or something equally as fitting and insurrectionary.
The DD on ice is brought to you care of Duckie, Situationist artstrel central, as part of Nightbird - their 8 and a half experiments to mix different artforms and social functions and deliver something new. The sketch, as Duckie duckie Simon Casson has it, is that "the gay disco as a genre has always been more central and influential in gay culture than, say, gay theatre, gay film or gay visual art. Our brief to the nine artists in the programme was: What can you do with a gay disco?" And there we will be. With Amy Lame's Miss Lesbian Beauty 2000, the great Ursula Martinez' one-to-one Curing Homosexuality sessions and more. Oh, and with The Divine David On Ice. Bring your tots. It's bound to be a hoot for the whole family.

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