On Saturday, June 6th, over 15,000 Berliners gathered in solidarity for a “Nein zu Rassismus” or “No to racism” rally in Alexanderplatz.

In spite of threats of infection, citizens from Brisbane to Los Angeles donned their masks to participate in a united protest movement against systemic racism in their respective countries. But the murder of George Floyd, sparking a seismic political shift via the Black Lives Matter resurgence throughout early summer, ushered in a heightened state of global unrest that also reverberated throughout the local community. When would the virus go away? And, when it did, how would the industry recover from the pandemic’s steep fallout? As of now, these existential questions still persist as club events in enclosed spaces remain on indefinite hiatus. Club owners, DJs, and party promotors alike found their already tenuous financial planning veer into a shadowy unknown. The electronic music model-an industry contingent on almost every element that would aid the virus’ proliferation: live events, touring artists, mass attendance, and the insufflation of shared illicits-effectively broke.

By her own definition, she’s someone who is “really out here.” But this dedication to the club took an abrupt turn when the novel coronavirus hit Berlin in February of 2020.īy March, the virus had effectively ruptured an entire culture that so many, including Strickland, held dear. Her role in the local nightlife scene, which began about two years ago when she moved to the city, was once described to me by a mutual friend as “the underground national treasure.” Strickland has been a thrill-seeker since her New York party days in the mid-2010s, frequenting such now-defunct heritage venues as Palisades, Output, and Silent Barn. Between her hair and her gregarious disposition, she’s an immediately recognizable figure on the dancefloor. Strickland, who is 30 years old and American, sports a closely-shaved head of hair that she dyes a new color about every three weeks-from turquoise to lilac to white blonde-like a semi-permanent mood ring. “People ,” she attests, “are experiencing outer body sensations people are experiencing pleasure on so many levels.” My grandma would wake us up and put me and my cousin in matching outfits, so she could bring us to church.” Her Berghain visits often remind her of a practice in Pentecostal Christianity known as Slain in the Spirit where “people fully let themselves go and experience the holy ghost” by speaking in tongues and rolling around on the ground. “It’s so parallel for me because that’s what we’d do with my grandparents in Alabama. “It’s the act of getting dressed up to go out in the morning,” she describes, of her own “Sunday best,” consisting of towering, laced-up platforms, brown Fenty lipstick, and a black tattoo plastic choker. To Strickland, going to the club and going to church feel one and the same. Half of the anticipation came from the question of getting in the other, came from being, as she puts it, “so excited to rip everything off and just fucking dance.”

Her most immediate memories of embarking towards the club were during the winter of late 2019, when her black down jacket brushed against her calves as she crunched through the rubble of the adjacent Comeniusplatz park and the grey, funeral sky looming above almost perfectly matched Berghain’s concrete edifice. Every Sunday, when Tianna Strickland got off the Warschauer Straße S-bahn stop and walked towards Berghain, her heart would twist in anxiety.

New york lockdown blackdown