2/9/2022 - Dani Chё’s Iron Curtain Cabaret - Bay Area

This was perhaps the most poignant episode played at the wonderful PLACE for Sustainable Living in Oakland California. For the first time I came out in a tutu, with clown makeup on. I was joined by Zina Pozen (accordion), Balder Ten Cate (guitar) and Leo Perringer (bass). What was even more important is that for the first time I relaxed the filters and allowed myself to sing very popular canonical Soviet love songs that previously I felt were known too widely for me to be able to make them my own, but overcoming this fear felt great and once again confirmed for me that the most famous songs are often the most powerful ones. The concert was followed by an endless world music jam where Soviet music was but a welcome genre alongside Balkan and Turkish music.