Nocturna's acrobats rehearse for the tango circus show. Or is that circus tango?

Bare-chested men took charge of their saucily dressed partners to dance to the likes of Bajofondo, Gotan Project and Electrocutango, ensuring the show is bang in the 21st century, although more traditional songs were mixed in over the 65 minutes. The six couples, dancing in flat gymnast’s pilmsolls, and the acrobats back-flipping about like loose cannons did, however, require several pairs of eyes just to keep up with their vigorous leaps and bounds.

Having learned to do the tango “walk” in baby beginner’s class last week, watching the same steps take place on a giant rectangular trampoline confirmed that some of us have got it… and some of us haven’t. And the Nocturna cast has it. Other tools-of-the-acrobatic trade included the table-and-chair milonga set-up as well as a seesaw, a trapeze, bendy street-light poles and a giant swing, and the performers made use of everything, climbing, flipping and dancing their way all over them.

Given a moment to shine, the first acrobat up, literally several metres in the air, was Hoop Girl. Like a lady in the moon, she flirted and writhed about for her lover as he waited below, desperate for a touch of her foot, as she took complete control of the hoop and flipped around it. As she turned and spun, so did my stomach. Frankly it was breath-taking, and Hoop Girl’s segment was immaculately performed, all without the artificial flavourings of ropes or harnesses to taint our complete confidence in her skills.

The coquettish mood changed dramatically when Giant Swinging Girl was carried in, funeral procession style, supported atop her colleagues’ sturdy shoulders.

Attached to a safety rope, she was little girl lost, her life cut short, but as she rocked and pushed herself high over the city, carefree, oblivious, she was reliving a special childhood moment. “At any moment she’s going to do a complete 360,” I thought to myself, as she soared to great heights, cheekily flashing her bottom as the wind knowingly whipped up her short skirt.

To keep the female audience members happy, the muscular, often bare-chested men took their turn bouncing and somersaulting via the seesaw, although not quite close enough for my leering eyes. To gain momentum, two started jumping, one on each side, in the style of the Korean game “Nol-ttwigi”, then another acrobat would leap on, giving the first the momentum and height to gyrate through the air and reach the ground perfectly.

The dominant tango-dancing couple also took centre stage and were surrounded by gymnastics and outrageous contortions of the balancing kind. Although it was hard to keep up with all the action, the twosome remained the centre of attention, commanding rapturous applause after their more traditional segment.

But the ultimate crowd pleaser has a rather dubious job title for his CV. Picture the conversation with his parents: “So son, what are you going to do with your law degree?” “Well, dad, I thought I’d be a right-tope talker…” With a face as flexible as his bendy inch-thick wire, this was my ultimate tango and circus combination. Dancing his way lightly, perfectly, with smooth foot moves and his feet dealing with each little groove, the audience was close enough to see Tight Rope Man’s every expression and sweat bead that steamy Thursday evening. But as much as he pretended it was an almost impossible mission, Tight Rope Man was in control of every bouncing, tango move all the way along that impossible-looking rope.

Fabulous fun, a dynamic production and a phenomenal combination of circus techniques and classic tango moves fit for 2010. Tangus? Cirgo? You want to go, that’s for sure.

Where & when: Every Thursday to Sunday until end of April 2010. Centro Cultural Recoleta, Junin 1400.
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Inzucare Orchestra

1. Whale watching in Patagonia
They say you never forget the first time you see a whale and I cannot disagree. As a southern right surfaced on the rosy dawn horizon in May, my spectacles fell off and in fact I saw nothing of these 17-metre-long cetaceans. A boat trip from Puerto Pirámides in Chubut province rectified this and to be within spitting distance of several pods at the start of the whale-watching season was breathtaking.

2. Radiohead live
The British rock band caused a huge stir when tickets for their March gig went on sale. Thom Yorke’s band were long-awaited in BA and they did not disappoint one millimetre. His heart-wrenching vocals were beyond perfection, and tracks came from most of their seven albums, including In Rainbows (2008). Icing on the cake was Creep, one the band says they no longer play live — so powerful and fulfilling it satisfied the most die-hard fan.

3. McFly interview
Good sports of the year go to McFly. In an interview with the British pop heartthrobs, they handled a taxing Argentina quiz perfectly, even if they barely knew any of the answers. Despite their youth (between 21 and 23), they are old hands at the pop game and their Trastienda gig was beyond perfect. Knocking out all the hits, the night was enhanced by easy access to the bar for the three over 18s in the crowd (me and two mates).

4. Inzucare Orchestra (photo)
With a penchant for the unusual, I finally tracked the 10-piece swing band down at the Avellaneda Jazz Festival. Nothing like men in suits expertly wielding brass instruments and bongos to put a glossy shine on an average evening, plus more people should check out Teatro Roma for a return to the olden days of glamour.

5. Oasis didn’t live forever
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. You could cut the tension with a knife between the Gallagher brothers on stage at River Plate stadium in May.The lacklustre 75-minute set showed a complete disregard for their fans plus singer Liam kept vanishing. So dry, it’s a wonder how they ever came up with the band name. Disappointed and letdown, there’s no maybe about buying inevitable reunion tickets: I definitely won’t be.

Left, Matt Graham and David Labi

He arrived in BA in 2007 as “I wanted some fresh air in life. I’d been to film school in LA and then got an assistant’s job with quite high stress levels right after that, and I was fed up with going to parties on Saturday nights and talking about who you know, ‘can you get me into this meeting’ or ‘I’m doing better than you’. Los Angeles is a very insular world so I was desperate. After doing a post-grad in writing for screen and television at the University of Southern California (USC), I came here basically to concentrate on my writing career and to escape Los Angeles.”

Last Night… is a contender for the title of ultimate expatriate film for several reasons. First, its principle roles are played by foreigners based here permanently — a North American leading man is supported by a Kiwi actor. Second, the driving force is from the UK, thanks to its British director and producer David Labi, and script writer Matt. Some financial backing came from independent sources in the US, and of course the plot revolves around an expatriate who runs into trouble on his final evening in the Argentine capital.

Matt talks about how the project got started and how their ideas matched. “I met David through a mututal USC friend who set us up. We got on well right away and started to spend time together and talking about doing a project. We went to the cinema one rainy afternoon as I was depressed about the language school, and we saw a terrible Keanu Reeves film called Street Kings. That inspired us to do a film too, but about the expat community in BA itself. We were both into that terribly clichéd ‘Paris in the 1920s’ idea and keen on turning that into something on screenand knew we didn’t want to make an art movie of a cityscape with a moody voiceover.”

The suspense film clocks in at seven-and-a-half minutes, and in those 660 seconds Matt says he and David wanted to depict Buenos Aires’ expatriate community, which is very small. “Everyone knows everyone else here, and the environment is very conducive to the arts. But I always feel like an outsider here no matter what I do, so the main charcater is like that. He’s leaving, but he’s sucked in by a mysterious girl. His main conflict is trying to escape from his responsibilities, and if I analysed my own life, I think I came here to do exactly that. I didn’t want another assistant’s job.”

Matt also suggests that the modern world has played its part in creating this need to escape. “We live in an increasingly uncertain time, and the idea of conventional normality is breaking down fast. Depending on nature of your work, you can go anywhere — I could work in Antarctica as long as I had an internet connection,” he says.

BUGGED OUT. David Labi, however, got bitten by the Buenos Aires bug four years ago. Coming to Argentina to learn Spanish, he was so infected that he inadvertently remained on a more permanent basis. “I was travelling around the world, and ended up staying as I made a feature documentary. There was a rumour about a reported Holocaust survivor, an old woman, who lived at the end of the world on an island in Patagonia, so I decided to go and find her. And I found her, I became a filmmaker, and all that took me to the end, and past, my ticket extension.”

In the early days, having an Argentine girlfriend meant having a fairly a low profile on the expat scene, but after editing a bi-monthly magazine aimed at the long-termers living here, he became more involved, and then met Matt.“We both had the same ideas, and although it kept morphing into something different, I think the final product, bizarrely, is very close to the original idea we had. It’s come full circle.”

Although other foreigners have filmed shorts in Buenos Aires, David thinks this is a more encompassing project. “I think this is the first film about the expat experience. Although it’s fiction, it’s very much about an expat’s view of Buenos Aires and it’s not showing it from a porteño point of view. If it’s not too presumptious of me, it’s the ultimate expat film.”

Explaining further, he adds: “It’s like a mysterious fantasy but I tried to show the different elements of life here in it. You’ve got the expat bar, the drunken rich best friend who screws all the time… it’s charicatured but it shows the different worlds, with the main character penetrating the city, which he’s always wanted to do.”

Premièring in San Telmo on December 9, 2009, David is in the process, as director and producer, of trying to get Last Night… onto the international film festival circuit, and has submitted it to BAFICI 2010, the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival.

“At some point I will be putting it online, but I want to get it out to the festivals first. And if anyone is holding a party or cultural event and would like to show it, then we’re interested in that, too.”

What would you, as a foreigner in Buenos Aires, do on your last night? Here are some suggestions: http://www.sorrelmw.com/expats-in-ba

In the Buenos Aires Herald:http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/19738

For more info check out: http://infernobuenosaires.blogspot.com/

David Labi: “I’d go to a seedy parrilla in a labyrinthine area of the city and load up on good red wine and finish it off with a Vasco Viejo.”

“See a folklore show, break into the cemetery and get drunk, hit up an electronic club, find a beautiful Argentine girl and convince her to have sex with me in a cab on the way to the Obelisco (paying the cab driver off, of course), and then take a picture with her in front of the Obelisco…”

“Drinks at 878, dinner at El Primo, more drinks at Congo or Mundo Bizarro, table at Tequila, breakfast at Kentucky.”

“I would have a huge steak, walk through La Boca and San Telmo, and then have another huge steak with chorizo and puré de papas. I’d stop by random shops and street corners and observe my surroundings, letting it sink in more profoundly than possible on a regular day. I’d take in the architecture, the cracks and pot holes in the street, hopefully not finding doggy doo doo anywhere near me, while eagerly waiting for a porteña to walk by so I can admire her rear capacities a few last times. Finally I’d hit up a random conversation with someone, complaining about something but ending that short chat laughing. Then I’d walk back to my place, say goodbye, smoke one last shitty joint, with a glass of Malbec and say ‘peace’!”

“Ride the number 39 bus from beginning to end, nose out the window, as always. Then get an early night. Oh, and check whether there’s a strike planned at Ezeiza.”

“I’d go to the Faena, have a great meal, lots of Malbec and retire to one of their suites to have sex with a hunky gaucho. Or maybe a polo player.”

“Not very exciting, but I’d probably sit on the steps at Milión with a drink and soak in the BA atmosphere one last time.”

“Fervor in Recoleta for grilled seafood and Chardonnay.”

“Kansas for dinner and then smoke pot with all my friends on the Río de La Plata.”

“Dinner with my porteña girlfriend, followed by a walk down the cobbled streets of Palermo and a night arguing about whether I should return to BA or whether it’s best to go our separate ways…”

“I would seriously just want to get together all the people that I care about, have a huge asado and drink tons of wine. Granted, we do this all the time, but I really think no one would care exactly where they were, but who they were with.”

“Bife de lomo at El Trapiche or at Don Julio, washed down with copious quantities of vino tinto.”

“I’d probably go to the cemetery and open up the coffins and see if there really were any bodies in the old caskets! Is that weird?”

“I’d have a giant asado in my backyard starting at 2am and ending at 9am and have some amazing wine delivered.”

“Definitely a big asado with friends. Hopefully somewhere with enough space to fit a little tango in too.”

“It would be a perfect spring evening and I’d walk home from last-minute downtown trámite madness and dulce-de-leche panic buying, along the Costanera, then bathe and change for dinner while sipping a mid-range, perfect Champagne. I’d head out for dinner at a San Telmo parrilla with my closest clutch of mates, then just see where the night took us — possible chicness at Le Bar or stools at the bar in La Cigale, then back to San Telmo for all-night dance craziness at Fugees 99.”

“Steak at La Cabrera, drinks at Sugar, party at Tequila, taxi straight to the airport.”

“I would set up one-hour appointments with every cute boy in my MSN whom I still haven’t met. I can always sleep on the plane the next day!”

“Take one last taxi ride with a chatty taxista.”

Which is why likening the audience to tombstones is not an unfair comparison. Head nodding and finger tapping aside, they remained firmly rooted to the ground. Plenty of single men mouthed along to Paradigma, No me iré and eponymous title track from latest album Carnaval de fantasmas (2008), but they did it silently, too shy to really go for it and bellow out the lyrics with the die-hard passion their appearance might allow them to.

7 Delfines have been around for nigh on 20 years but their low-fi 80s rock clearly attracted a certain type of fan when they started out in 1990: the shy, floppy haired male predecessor to the 21st century Emo, probably not very good at chatting up girls and with a pallid skin tone because of an unhealthy aversion to daylight.

Led by Argentine rock royalty of sorts, Richard Coleman, a guitarist and vocalist who spent the decade of flamboyant and flammable hairdos playing alongside Argentine rock royalty Gustavo Cerati, Andrés Calamaro, Luis Alberto Spinetta and Charly García, Coleman finally set up what was to become his own four-piece in the coastal town of Villa Gesell that summer, a four-piece that currently comprises Braulio D’Aguirre (drums), Germán Lentino (bass) and Diego García (guitar and backing vocals).

If the crowd weren’t tombstones, then perhaps a less abrasive comparison is a forest of sycamore trees (also known as the martyrs’ tree, the sycamore seems appropriate because the crowd seemed like it didn’t want to be there but had begrudgingly forced themselves to shell out and turn up for some dark and mysterious reason).

But during the 22-song show, a peculiar force of nature kept occurring. A musical breeze would suddenly select a sycamore at random and up its branches went, waving frantically on the lyrical wind but just as quickly subsiding. But at no point did that breeze take a firm grip of several trees and cause them to sway in unison, or even try to uproot themselves.

The band ticked all the boxes: they were energetic, Coleman was in tune, they knocked out favourites and played as many tracks as Depeche Mode did at this year’s Personal Fest, but the crowd just never let themselves go. In the end it was those two wild flowers who fluttered about more vigorously than their sycamore counterparts.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/PrintedEdition/View/21229

The main problem emerged days before the event, which in previous years has attracted 60,000 revellers. Originally due to take place on November 7, the downsized event was postponed on October 28 by the Buenos Aires City government. The original line-up included Orbital, Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, Richie Hawtin, Hernán Cattáneo, 2 Many DJs and Danny Howells who had been booked to fly in and play alongside national artists such as Romina Cohn, Bad Boy Orange, Soundexile, DJ Paul and Deep Mariano.

The reason for its suspension? Apparently promoter 2NET did not submit the relevant paperwork therefore the City government could not authorise Creamfields taking place at GEBA.

SECOND DATE. Such issues can be resolved, however, and on November 4 2NET confirmed a new date, December 19, with a different headline act, but it was the promoter’s lack of communication that upset fans. In the week of silence that ensued (the promoter’s boss, Martín Gontad, told the Herald he had preferred not to comment until they had concluded all their inquiries), fans angrily posted messages on music web forums such as www.groovesite.com.ar and www.flowmi.com, saying “I only bought my ticket to see David Guetta”, “I am really indignant”, “why did they start to sell tickets if the paperwork wasn’t in order?” and “what an embarassment”.

So following all this fiasco, an alternative venue was eventually confirmed two weeks before the new December 19 date, and the one-dayer’s gates finally creaked open at 4pm Saturday afternoon.

Well, that was the theory, but it didn’t happen in practice. Tickets costing around $170 stipulated the afternoon kick-off, but further hiccups meant it was touch and go on the actual day, unbeknown to the hundreds queuing. Gontad said on Sunday: “We only received approval at 7.30pm to open doors from the City government’s Direccion de Habilitaciones. The event was almost about to be postponed again due to the rain consequences, and this was the only reason for gates opening later than announced.”

By 8pm the queue, which was worming its way round Parque Roca — and it was a grumpy worm at that, clapping and “oleing” its way along to the music in the distance — started to slither along. It was a substantial wait for hundreds in the damp weather and not an energising start for those already disillusioned with the date and line-up change — bear in mind only one of the international artists originally booked for the November festival, Richie Hawtin (besides Cattáneo who is a given at this annual event), made it to Creamfields Buenos Aires.

Although a silver lining was distinctly lacking on Saturday’s clouds, let’s look on the bright side. A new date means a new batch of artists coming to feed the 40,000 with their tunes at Parque Roca, and the trance DJ Tiesto was the star turn. The best of the rest included Jeff Mills, Tima Maas, Darren Emerson, Guy Gerber and M.A.N.D.Y.

OHHHHH. It was a welcome return for the German-Swiss duo M.A.N.D.Y., Philipp Jung and Patrick Bodmer, who were booked to play Alsina club in winter but their international tour was cancelled thanks to the circulating H1N1 flu virus. Talking to the Herald back in July, Philipp said the pair were just as disappointed as their fans about not making it to Buenos Aires.

“We tried everything and we were in constant contact the whole time. We waited until the last minute and in the end, along with our agent, we decided it didn’t make sense if people were scared to go out,” he said.

“Also the situation wasn’t clear whether clubs would be open. We are terribly sorry for us, and of course, for all the people who bought tickets and were looking forward to seeing our show. But due to swine flu we also had to cancel a show in Thailand.”

But that silver lining is starting to shine a bit brighter. In town for one of those “in-and-out” jobs DJs are renowned for, Patrick and Philipp had an exclusive chat with the Herald prior to their disco siestas and 11.30pm slot on the Main Stage about horse riding, New York City and art.

Friends since they were 15, when M.A.N.D.Y. got the call from promoter Gontad they freed themselves up for the Argentina gig. Having played the music festival twice before, they were keen to return and more so following their winter cancellation — fortunatley Philipp managed to rearrange some solo dates, says Patrick. “He was booked in Tokyo but he already had plans to be in South America, so he cancelled Tokyo and it was a good chance for me to jump in as well.”

This third date is all about Creamfields — arriving last Friday, the pair played Saturday then left on Sunday — but Patrick has fond memories of when they played Córdoba. “We stayed in an estancia for a week, sleeping in the swine’s cabin in the middle of nowhere…”

“The swine was me!” chips in Philipp.

“The family showed us how to ride horses with nothing but a blanket,” adds Patrick. “It wasn’t very subtle and I left with a bloody butt. I got so excited about riding the horse that I didn’t think about the fact that I was wearing jeans. I didn’t have a mirror so I had to ask Philipp how it looked, and he was like ‘woah.’ It took some weeks to get over and it looked very weird, like I’d been involved in heavy gay stuff. I had to explain to my new girlfriend that it was only because I’d been riding horses in Argentina.

“And the next time we come here we want to go to Fireland,” he adds enthusiastically. Ah. Tierra del Fuego.

Holiday anecdotes aside, Philipp and Patrick are phenomenally popular as the DJs and producers M.A.N.D.Y. but also manage to stand tall separately, Patrick in particular, given that he’s the classic, leggy, blue-eyed Swiss blond. It’s been 17 years since they first started throwing techno parties in Frankfurt, seven years since they set up their Berlin-based record label Get Physical, home to 22 other artists including Booka Shade and Thomas Schumacher, and in October the duo released a mix album for Renaissance, a musical seal of approval from the British label denoting the electronic scene is theirs.

An additional sign of “having arrived” was Martín Gontad’s personal invitation to play the ninth Creamfields Buenos Aires so life seems pretty peachy for the duo, apart from the disastrous Buenos Aires weather. It’s tipping it down outside their Puerto Madero hotel. Patrick says: “We play the British festivals so our experience is that if it’s raining really heavily and you think no one is going to come, it will actually be quite busy. As long as it’s not cold, it’s often even more rock ‘n roll.”

Talking ahead of Saturday’s Buenos Aires experience, Philipp adds: “We’re really excited as it’s the first time we’ve played the Main Stage and we’re alongside Richie Hawtin and Tiesto. We want to see what Tiesto does and why he’s number one.”

The bad weather naturally affects their style, so with the clouds comes a darker sound, says Patrick. “Going from beautiful sunshine techno to heavy, dark electronic, rainforest techno — that’s what we’ll do.” Whatever the style, it’s got some stiff competition from the thunder…

WAY BACK WHEN. There’s plenty of banter between the friends, who met on the tennis courts 25 years ago, and although they have little time in BA they are keen to find out about the underground music scene and who they should be listening to. Taking them back to the astroturf, Patrick explains how it all began.

“I was interested in getting connected with Philipp as he had a bike, and I wasn’t allowed to ride one. I thought ‘he’s a very good contact, he’s got a nice bike’ and then when I was 18 I had a bike and he didn’t. And you crashed it,” he indicates to Philipp.

Despite this upset, they remained close with Patrick, grandson of an artist, treading that career path for several years to pay for his studies. Success came quickly for the teenage painter but one day he decided he liked music and it was all change. “I just can’t do both at the same time so I am very limited creatively,” he says. So should the former German judo champion (aged 10) who was awarded a medal by Frankfurt city for outstanding sporting achievement fancy a change, well, he can always invest in a new set of paintbrushes.

In fact art played an important role for the duo in the early days. Patrick’s studio was the venue for techno parties in the early 90s in Frankfurt. “My art studio was a brewery so we’d combine my painting with techno parties with Ricardo Villalobos playing there, for example. We mixed it all up a bit! We’d give everything away for free, let nice people in for free — we weren’t very good businessmen!”

Philipp adds: “When we were young, we had these underground arty guys behind us and they always supported us and helped us to find spaces. It was very natural, it was never about having to do something.

“We used to give out flyers personally so we could explain the concept to each person, and we’d walk around for three weeks before the party promoting it. You might only find one person all night who might be the right one for our party. It was very hand selected,” he adds.

RIGHT HERE. Back to the present. Philipp has recently transferred to the US, while Patrick remains in Berlin, so this means both are playing individually (although as M.A.N.D.Y.) more than ever. “We don’t have side projects but we do play separately,” clarifies Philipp, “and more so as I just moved to New York.” The change took place two months ago, because, he says: “I wanted the energy from new people and it’s nice to do that. There was a chance so now I’m living in Chelsea. I’ve got everything I need and all the galleries are there. If you’re lonely, there’s always something to see.”

In addition, the Renaissance mix album is out, and although it’s been a difficult year, according to Philipp (“it’s been hard for everyone in music and we’ve been trying to survive as well”), they’ve just completed two new tracks with label mate Booka Shade. With Philipp producing in New York and Patrick in Germany, the plan is to bring everything together to release an LP in April 2010.

“It’s been three or four years since we joined forces with Booka Shade so we want to do that again, and come back to the family idea. It’s time to write the next chapter,” says Patrick.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/20654

Mary Jo Diehl in action

Although most style-concious countries have their own version of Next Top Model and the designer-and-model TV show Project Runway is in its sixth season, fashion has been taken to a brand new level — giving talented fledgling designers and artists an opportunity to shine — with their creations coming together in front of an audience in a mere five minutes.

Brainchild of wife-and-husband team Mary Jo Diehl and Roman Milisic from design studio House of Diehl, Style Wars brings fashion, music, art and design all together, live, in one city for one night.

Originating in New York City, the battle between eight designers who create haute couture from second-hand clothes and recycled material in under five minutes has wound its way to London, Johannesburg and Hong Kong and touches down in BA for its runway debut this evening.

In an exclusive interview with the Herald, Croatia-born Roman says: “Style Wars started with a few people in their bedrooms, but it grew really fast from 40 people to 3,000 within six months. So we decided to take it to five continents, but only do one show in each — the smallest of world tours.”

Buenos Aires is the South American city of choice, as the design duo were put in touch with Argentine DJ Ale Lacroix and his business partner Julia Gersberg from Zuma Production Boutique via a mutual French friend who works with House of Diehl. Former MTV VJ Ale, who hosts the design-off tonight, says: “It was love at first sight. We fell for Style Wars six months ago and we wanted to make it happen. And now it’s happening today!”

Explaining the concept further, Brooklyn-born Mary Jo says: “It’s about what’s out there right now. It can be politics or product, you can be part of the solution or part of the problem. We came to this idea solving problems and creating opportunities for designers and audiences so they can connect. There are so many cool and creative people that it doesn’t matter whether you’re from Brooklyn or Buenos Aires — great talent deserves a great opportunity and that’s what Style Wars is about.”

With the current economic environment, it’s a complex time for any business start-up, least of all in fashion, yet Style Wars ticks the box of getting fresh talent recognised. “So what if you’re not Galliano?” says Mary Jo. “But if you have that genius, shouldn’t you get that spotlighted? That’s why we did this, to create opportunities.”

The design-off, a knock-out competition between the selected eight, also ticks the environmental box. “We’ve been working with recycled clothes and green products before, so that makes Style Wars accessible to everybody. We were a bit jaded with the New York scene and wanted to create a super-cool, fun experience for an audience too,”she adds.

The eight — Titi de Incendisenios, Tranqui Yanqui, Hernan Jackie Ludueña, Soledad Limido, Nicole Segal, Magali Fischtein, Poeta Team – Street Artist and Kinda killer & Wuacha — were among hundreds who applied to House of Diehl and were selected two days ago.

Roman admits he never leaves home without a pair of scissors, so let’s hope the new designers on the block take advice from the king of cuts when it’s crunch time tonight.

Where & When: Crobar, Av. Infanta Isabel & Av. Marcelino Freyre. From midnight. For tickets, email tickets@zumaboutique.com