Dario Campo: The Promise Of Change

Radical acceptance can break down barriers – Berlin-based dancer, director and filmmaker Dario Campo played an important role in our latest music video for The Irrepressibles’ Ecstasy Homosexuality. As part of our Beyond Lust summer special, we asked Dario about how leaving perfectionism behind helped him to become a better storyteller, the duality of living in Berlin, and the liberating experience of getting a queer haircut.

What’s something that you learned to appreciate more only after moving to Berlin?

I’ll probably sound like a broken record, but moving to this rathole of a city really taught me to embrace DIY-culture, and just try stuff out. Before coming here, I was pretty much a perfectionist and easily impressed or even intimidated by creative people which kept me from starting anything on my own. I now work as a filmmaker, mainly producing and directing, but wanna also get myself more into dancing and performing in front of the camera – because I know I can do it! So as much as I feel pressure in this city to prove and compare myself, I’m also more confident in myself, ready to experiment, and just let go. I guess letting go, going with the flow is a big thing that I am trying to indulge in more these days. Same thing is happening in my private life. As yet another Berlin cliche, I am having two romantic relationships these days and entering this poly rodeo is for sure new and challenging to me in a lot of ways but sharing spaces with so many like minded, inspiring people gave me the opportunity to try out, and let go of my preoccupied mindset.

What’s your take on experiencing a state of ecstasy in your life?

I find pleasure and ecstatic moments in all fragments of life. But what nourishes me the most is connecting with people, feeling loved, understood, letting my guards down, being vulnerable. Creating memories together. And dancing! I feel incredibly free when I can move myself. It puts me in a different, careless headspace where I can just be. Sharing and receiving this dancing energy, getting goofy and childish on the dancefloor is the best, and something I don’t want to miss out on!

Who is your personal queer icon & inspiration?

I realized this quite late in my life, but it’s literally Lady Gaga. For a long time in my teenage years, I felt strongly attached to her, “not knowing” why. Well, it took me some time to come out to myself, 21 years, to be precise, but I am super glad to have grown up in her blooming era. What I love the most about her is her radical will to step outside of beauty norms and embrace weirdness, creative freedom with far-out self expression. This is basically my idea of a liberated queer community. Let’s create our own ideas of beauty.

How does your queer identity influence your creative process?

Since I don’t feel represented either in politics, mainstream media or various other areas of life, this gives me a lot of freedom to create my own, unique path. Of course, I am frightened sometimes along the way and it can destabilize me to not have references as I was growing up in a super heteronormative system. Stepping out of that gives me a lot more freedom. I don’t feel the need to meet certain beauty standards, conform to binary behavioral structures or nourish classical relationship ideas. I am super grateful to be surrounded by so many queerdos & allies who support and inspire me, and I am glad to be on this journey. Last year, for example, I started my own queer on queer hair cutting business, as my answer to classical hair salons and barber shops where they strictly divide between binaries and I never felt fully safe to explore myself.

What are some of your upcoming projects that you’re looking forward to the most?

I am currently working on the post-production of “Planet Anthurium”, a queer smut-movie, set in a moist greenhouse full of anthuriums witnessing a luscious gathering of three outer-worldly creatures. And our documentary film “Come Die with Us!” which deals with 12 elderly lesbians wanting to be buried together, raising the questions about coexistence and (co)dying within the queer community, will hopefully be screened at festivals soon!

In what ways has your journey in the queer community shaped who you are today?

It literally let me relive some sort of second youth, where I can try out myself in lots of different aspects of my life. I am super grateful for that. With moving to Berlin, I was not feeling outcasted or isolated anymore since in certain spaces around here, where we are the majority. Not having to explain or justify myself can feel very empowering. I guess I get why lots of straight men gatekeep their spaces so drastically – whoops! Radical acceptance is something I experience in lots of queer spaces in Berlin and that I love a lot. Even so, I think we still have much to fight for when it comes to body norms or ageism, and I’m well aware that as a white, male-read person, I’m still part of a privileged group within the queer community. But I believe in the possibility of change.

Dario’s interview is part of our special, Beyond Lust, celebrating queer love and liberation with Container Love’s latest film: the music video for the song by The Irrepressibles, Ecstasy Homosexuality.

Photography Anil Ayhan, Talent Dario Campo