Europe: a continent, an idea, a center of power. From fortress to free-trade zone to sparks of joy — and back again. Is this a utopia, or can it be discarded? Is anything still salvageable from the idea of its peacefully united peoples, bound together in freedom?
Europe: an abducted king’s daughter. What has become of her after more than two thousand years held hostage by various ideologies, dictators, and bearers of hope? How is she? And where is she, anyway?
Hello, Europe, can you hear the signals? There, in a remote truck stop somewhere along the edge of the Freedom Highway, right by the closed barrier, the slot machine still flickers dimly, the last jukebox of the old continent warbles on, Brecht’s penny drops in vain into the claw machine. Here, at the go-go pole, a weary dancer spins night after night; the polish is worn off — and not just from her nails. Yet she wears her heart on her tongue and sings to the sleepless, the scattered, the remnants of the Occident her songs — of submission and empowerment, of swords and sheaths, of prostitution and revolution.
When the spotlight comes on, you can see it: she wears a blue robe and a blazing crown of golden stars. The dancer has long since ceased to need the foolish bull. It is her voice that gives her wings and lets her soar across all borders.
