SASHA DOLGOPOLOV
FEBRUARY the 4th
THE PERSEUS FEATHER
It was supposed to be a text on the exhibition of photography at Greta Meert, but then something else emerged. For the first time in my life, I attended a stand-up comedy show, in English, by a Russian comedian living in exile in Germany. Brace yourselves for a bit of a confession. I am an avid follower online, a perfect public for the absurd and satisfyingly mad humour of Sasha Dolgopolov.
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DQWVw46jfnL/
Now that she performs in English, I could bring a friend along to her show, with whom to share some of the Russian weirdness that we, the children of Perestroika, suppress with so little success.
Brussels is one of this hard-working comedian’s fifty tour destinations. The mere fact that our capital is on the list is a bit of a miracle. Belgium isn't an obvious choice for the non-EU Russian immigration, the community is small and scattered. Only a few artists venture into this territory to reach the diaspora, certainly out of desperation. Or, as it happens, with the new ambition to reach an English-speaking public!
We took the 54 bus to reach an unknown to us venue, The Perseus Feather. An obscure one, even by our low-life-artists standards. I had a certain idea of how a comedy club should look like, and deep down I was fearing finding those curtains, tables, aggressive spot light, men in suits.
Much to my relief and perplexity, none of these things were present in the same way I had imagined. That is to say, the essentials were there: the chairs, the light, a salle polyvalente, and the only man in a suit was sitting just in front of me. But the place had this unmistakable Ixelles, slowly simmering, Marxists-anarchist, amateur theatre vibe, with cheap drinks and Coca-Cola served from a large plastic bottle. The intimately unsparkling leftovers of it. I couldn’t help but wonder, how exactly did Sasha end up performing in this particular place? It even inspired her to later produce a site-specific joke about the SOUP sign at the bar. A minimalist efficient joke, where simply saying the word in a certain way was enough. And a biting one for Brussels, where the smell of soup accompanies so many art events.
Still, I wondered, aren’t there other addresses dedicated to comedy in town? Or is this the state of comedy as a genre, and comedians on the road perform in run-down maisons de maître in this country? I love a run-down maison de maître, but I was intrigued enough to check what else is there in the field. Turns out only Brussels has quite a few places dedicated to comedy specifically: Kings Comedy Club, Petits Kings Comedy Club, Comedy Ket, Comedy Brussels, Countdown Comedy Club, Sidesplitters Comedy, and finally Comme Eddy Club. The shows of Sasha are clearly comedy, with callbacks and good scripts, yet it was not a question to perform in any of the places that contain the word comedy in them. I do not know what is happening in those venues, and I agree, The Perseus Feather is a much nicer name.
But it didn’t sit right with me. A skilled stalker, I randomly picked a few other cities Sasha would tour in, and I found the following: Luxembourg - Carlitos Comedy Club, Amsterdam - Southend Comedy Club, Wien - The Comedy Pub, Zurich, even more institutional - Comedy Haus, in a very nice-looking building according to google maps! Clearly, something went very wrong in Brussels. Of course, Sasha is an anarchist, she can’t possibly perform in a Kings Comedy Club, but what about the Comme Eddy? Right here, why not to include a joke on the anarchist from the 19th century Kropotkin.
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DQZFrANCDlA/
When writing for eachbxl, I seem to have made it a habit to refer to recent conversations with friends to allow a sense of perspective within a text. There it goes. An artist friend told me the other day that Brussels is a city for artists who are somewhat cool losers, who either don’t want to or can’t make it in bigger capitals. (Not my words, I stress). It was totally unexpected coming from that particular friend, as his career is rather successful and international, and I fear his comment bordered on a half-intended insult. But perhaps there is some truth to his words too: could it be that in other places of Europe you have bigger chances to hit the spot directly, and do your job in an appropriate setting concordant with your medium sooner? While as you land in Brussels you magically turn into a loser with integrity, that either can’t or won’t make it even to a Petit Kings Comedy Club quick enough? Some devilish logic of detour, the same one that keeps deviating our buses from their original trajectories month after month, seems to be at play here.
Perhaps Sasha understood it all too well, and she is right to hold tightly onto the feather, however mythological, but practical. After all, we are just glad she comes back regularly and targets larger publics despite the local specifics.
Coming up the shaky staircase of The Perseus Feather, we could hear Sasha’s voice at the entrance. One would think a Dolgopolov radio was on. Yet it was Sasha herself, sitting on a stool, looking very much the same as on Instagram and Youtube, sounding louder than on my late-night phone. A perfect star at work. She was greeting the audience, and offering the indispensable merch - stickers and self-made comics. Three options of comics to be precise: ”one about the rabbits I used to have as a child, another on the horrible political situation in Russia, and this one is just an abstract one…”
Polina Akhmetzyanova