Bash Compactor: My Red Self

Those Bolsheviks sure knew how to dress. Sure, the Russians had their problems, but no one can deny how chic those black Cossack hats and Commissar boots were, and what a fab combo red and black is. And those Commies sure did party hard. That’s probably why Performa, the organization dedicated to arts and performance of an avant-garde stripe, used the Russian Constructivist theme for a party last week.

Radical art, radical politics and on the invite we were commanded: “Attire for the evening is RED!” I look gorgeous in red, so I pulled out a pair of fire-engine-colored dancing shoes and was off into the night. Of course, I missed the VIP dinner, at $1,000 a person. Apparently all the menu items were red, as were the liquids. I’m told actress Anne Hathaway was there, as was artist Carolee Schneeman and the elusive Cindy Sherman.

I didn’t see any of these ladies as I strolled into the cavernous new space Performa rented out on West 37th Street; maybe some of the celebs dined and dashed, but I bumped into emcee Alan Cumming decked out in faux-military attire. I grabbed a cranberry-and-vodka cocktail and gravitated toward the elaborate stage constructed in the middle of the room especially for the occasion by artists Zach Rockhill and Kyle Goen.

My friend and I ran over to eat some dessert, but discovered an installation called Padded Cell and built by artist Jennifer Rubell out of cotton candy. “Watch out, everybody. This is pink asbestos!” I warned the other people in the hut, but nobody was alarmed by my prognosis and they kept munching. Soon enough, Sexual Energies School: Leningrad began a polyphonic songfest, four dudes jamming on the raised set, vocals interwoven with electronic arpeggios. After the show, I cornered redshirted Nick Hallett, one of the singers, and demanded he add me to the group. “Well, I’ll think about it,” he replied tactfully.

The dance floor was hopping with well-heeled, red-garbed twenty- and thirtysomethings and a nice sprinkling of fiftyand sixty-somethings. I never got to meet the honoree, Iranian artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat, who charmed us all last week when that video she made with her hunky date Henry Rollins went viral, but I had an impromptu photo session and afterparty in the ladies room with the girls from Chica Vas, most of them decorated by red stripes on the face.

“We’re a 50-woman percussion band from Brooklyn,” one of them told me as I snapped pics of the stylish girls wolfing down hunks of the pink fluffy dessert. “Who are you?” she asked, a bit suspiciously. “Can’t you tell?” I asked. “I’m here on an undercover assignment from the Kremlin.”