There’s a heatwave in Berlin and I make my way excitedly to a new open air club by the river, with a digital ticket and a negative coronavirus test in hand. I get off the train in Kreuzberg and walk along hot streets filled with people drinking and eating at tables outside. I’m going to dance in a club for the first time in over a year – since pre-pandemic times – and I can’t wait.
It’s been a cold, lonely winter in Berlin, enduring what has felt like an endless coronavirus shutdown. For seven long months, the city’s restaurants, bars, sports and cultural venues, and clubs have been shuttered and it’s fun-loving residents have been encouraged to stay at home.
But this month it feels like Berlin has finally shed its grey winter jacket and put on it’s colourful party clothes; in a short time the city has come roaring back to life and people have come back out to play.
Coronavirus case numbers have fallen sharply, Germany’s previously sluggish vaccination campaign has picked up pace, and temperatures have soared to 35 degrees. Much of public life has reopened and there’s a sense of optimism in the air: the long awaited summer has begun.
From this weekend we can even dance again. Berlin has lifted its Tanzverbot [dance ban], meaning that for the first time in months, Berliners are free to get out of their seats in club gardens.
I meet my friend outside a new open air venue called AEden. “Hundreds of days in lockdown leave invisible marks,” the event description reads on Facebook. “Art provides medicine and therapy for the soul.” We head inside. Berlin’s infamous door policy has been given a pandemic update – as well as looking the part, there’s now a strict requirement to show a negative test, or proof of full vaccination, on entry, and to have a mask with you. Events are also capped at 250 clubbers.
But once inside, we’re allowed to dance pretty much as usual.
The club has a shaded garden area, where people are having drinks, and a separate dancefloor. We start by ordering club mates – a caffeinated, non-alcoholic soft drink popular in Berlin – and sit by a small pond. In our excitement we’ve made the rookie error of arriving early and are some of the first ones here.
We talk to a man near us, who tells us that last summer he filled the dance-shaped hole in his life by going to makeshift parties in the park with dodgy sound systems. I ask if being in a proper club today is better. “Of course,” he says. “Let’s never talk about those times again.”
Eventually, we head to the open air dance floor, where a DJ is playing techno music. I’d forgotten how meditative dancing to electronic music can feel, as you zone out and let the music wash over you. “I can’t believe I’m actually in a club again,” my friend says beside me.
Over time, the dance floor fills up and the music starts to feel faster and more euphoric. It’s hot, shaded and sweaty and some men have taken off their tops, while some women have stripped to their underwear. Others are wearing shorts and trainers to be able to dance comfortably, while many people are in classic Berlin all-black club and fetish style outfits.
Dancing together with sweaty strangers feels cathartic after being in isolation and disconnected for so long. For a brief moment, I feel connected with everyone on the dancefloor, dancing joyfully together in the heat, collectively set free and celebrating life after what has been a difficult year.
“I guess I’d shut down that part of me that loves dancing,” my friend tells me later. “So it was like it was lying there dormant and being in a club again woke it back up.”
Eventually we have to tear ourselves away, as the party continues to rage on into the night. My feet and legs ache after hours on the dance floor, instead of on the couch. “I really hope this is the first of many club visits this summer,” my friend tells me when we say goodbye.
I make my way back through Kreuzberg on the hot summer night, along sidewalks still full with groups of friends. For the first time in a very long time I feel excited for the music-filled months ahead – and all the dancing we’re going to do.
Abby Young-Powell is a journalist living in Berlin