Serving you Club Kid realness is Hercules & Love Affair’s newest video for ‘Rejoice’ featuring the legendary Rouge Mary. Following the release of the introspective single ‘Omnion’, the band is now bringing their fans back to the dancefloor with an all-star cast. Andy Butler explains, ”So after six years of us never appearing in a Hercules and Love Affair video (more by accident than design), I wanted us to appear in the video for ‘Rejoice’. Rouge Mary is such a ferocious performer so it was kind of a no-brainer. We had to capture that energy in this video.”
Enter Cybersissy (fine artist Antoine Timmermans) and BayBJane (Mourad Z.). Colourful, outrageous, androgynous, humorous and completely different, just some of adjectives you could reach for in vain to describe the creations of Cybersissy and her muse BayBJane. A partnership founded in the Cologne club Lulu, they have become something of a performance art phenomenon. Standing on the shoulders of many before her, Cybersissy’s visions for this nightlife duo springboard off of the trailblazing work of Leigh Bowery and early NYC/London nightlife, incorporating her education and prodigious talents as a painter and mixed media artist. From Cologne, to London, taking in Pike’s Ibiza and beyond, BayBJane has become one of the most popular performers around. And at 148cm tall, she is perhaps, the smallest Drag Queen in the world.
Directed by Will Kennedy, the video for Rejoice is a dazzling and joyously bewildering film. “As a foil to Rouge’s performance, director Will Kennedy wanted to capture some of the club community around us, some that embody the essence of the message of the song.” says Andy Butler, “Will has a great mixed media style and a documentary angle in his work. Rouge and I felt that two boundary-pushing drag performers, who we love so much, Cybersissy and BayBJane would fit the bill perfectly. We met them at the wonderfully debauched club Hotel Shanghai in Essen Germany. They have triumphed in the face of much adversity in their lives, and channel that triumphant and joyful spirit into brilliant otherworldly characters that they bring into the nightclub. I am so happy with what Will has captured and put together. It is bursting with colour and conveys Cybersissy and BayBJane’s boundless creativity and beautiful spirits. They personify Rouge Mary’s wonderful lyrics.“
‘Rejoice’ is taken from the new album ‘Omnion’
