‘Bon Voyage Aloha’ Sends Us To Russia, With Love (Review)
The make-believe travel agency transports its attendees abroad
Those who know me well know that large social gatherings are not my area of greatest expertise; the ones I go to typically have either 20-sided dice, or are just three people, a bottle of wine, and a film by Hitchcock. That isn’t to say I don’t want to go to large parties, filled with well-dressed people sipping fancy cocktails and laughter bubbling up above the swell of music. Quite the contrary, I’ve been seeking that party since arriving in New York City.
I’ve tried attending massive themed parties at clubs, and have always been a tad bit disappointed by the end results. Typically, it feels like the theming is ancillary to the drinking. I attend longing for the sort of transformative madness I can only imagine happened during the era of Studio 54, only to find a handful of women in costume and their finance bro boyfriends in crisp suits trying to recreate the magic of Burning Man, and failing. Too often, immersive-infused parties end up feeling like outsider art made safe for a wealthy insider audience.
With all this in mind, I think Bon Voyage Aloha is exactly what I was looking for in an immersive night out. This self-described “underground cocktail club” effectively transported me, and all of its attendees, to the “anything can happen” liminal space that good immersive art and entertainment provides. The event employs a device of an “imaginary travel agency” to transport its attendees elsewhere and this time, it was to a cozy bar in Russia.
Immediately upon arrival, we jumped through space and time. We knocked three times on the door, and a woman in a brocade coat and babushka hurried us in, chattering in rapid Russian. “You’ll catch your death of cold, quick, quick!” She hustled us downstairs, and just as quickly, we’d been plied with shots of vodka by a woman in a gleaming headdress. The spell has been woven, and we’d arrived in Russia, the world of the Bowery outside a distant dream. I could tell “where” we were, but “when” was a little more difficult to place; the staff was clearly dressed as czarists, but the drink names and photo booth were Soviet kitsch. The effect worked, though, with the basement of a Mexican restaurant transformed into a kaleidoscope of our thoughts surrounding Russia.
Normally, this sort of pastiche could feel appropriative at best and reductive at worst (especially regarding our collective tendency to reduce cultures to easily digestible culinary artifacts). The inclusion of Russian and first-generation Russian-American voices managed to circumvent this pitfall by casting Russian actors. Their stories were personal. Having a Russian-American storyteller share stories from her life growing up in a first-generation immigrant family gave context to the cultural artifacts, and shifted the role of the audience. Despite the “fictional travel agency,” we weren’t tourists so much as “guests,” being offered a window into our host’s culture.
As I alluded to earlier, each course of cocktails was paired with a story of life in Russia. One story was an immigration tale retelling the shock of arriving from the Eastern Bloc to New York City on Halloween night and being stunned by the USA looking exactly as it did in Soviet propaganda (debauched, loony, and frivolous). Another was a fond recollection of their mother’s remedy for the common cold: a mixture of chirped words of affection and our next cocktail, an egg and brandy mixture which she correctly described as being worth getting sick to drink. Between these memories, a Russian band played classic folk songs, introducing each one with a bit of context and history. My personal heritage is pan-Eastern European, and each story in Bon Voyage Aloha felt like it could have come from my own family’s history.
As far as cocktails, they were imaginative, plentiful, and luxurious. The drinks had a number of traditional offerings starting with shots of peppery horseradish vodka the minute you walked through the door, to a sweet and pulpy fruit kompot, to a gussied up gogel mogel, which is the aforementioned Jewish-Ukranian cold remedy. That didn’t stop them from offering up the playful and absurd as well, such as a Russian martini with beetroot eau-de-vie and caviar garnish. Each was delicious. Devised by Scott Rodrigue, they were modern versions of Russian standards but avoided turning into the sort of yuppie “reinterpretation” so far divorced from the original that it feels in no way related to its culture of origin. However, the food, while delicious, was probably the evening’s sorest point, specifically in terms of quantity. With that many cocktails on the menu it would have been better to eat beforehand. I hope future events manage to figure out a different tactic.
The biggest surprise of the evening came in the form of the photo booth by Ventikoland. Usually, photo booths are a collection of lightly themed props and a cheap backdrop which result in a hasty and disposable photo, posed in a drunken haze. With a collection of elaborate props (furs, hats, and rugs) the Bon Voyage Aloha experience was closer to a formal photoshoot. We were asked our “concept” for the photo and worked with Ventiko, the eponymous photographer, to design a shot. The process was lengthy and deliberate, resulting in probably my favorite photo of the year, as the photographer styled us as “two Pierres adrift in a world of Andres.”
The photo booth, like the rest of the evening, was a clear example of the power of making specific decisions. By involving partygoers in the world the event sought to create, each individual rose to the occasion. Conversation was lively, people opened themselves up to new experiences and new flavors, and everyone left refreshed, given a respite from their realities. This thought, I realized, is what had been missing from the earlier themed parties I had attended. You can have as many lights and sounds as you want, even activities, but without onboarding guests into your world, no one will be convinced to maintain the illusion, and your atmosphere will deflate like a souffle. Create that magic circle, though, and your guests will play along happily, treating your party like a journey they’ll never forget. Blissfully, Bon Voyage Aloha manages to create that journey.
Bon voyage, Bon Voyage Aloha. You’ve married immersive theatre, the cocktail party, and the supper club, and the results are sumptuous. See you again, wherever we land next.
Bon Voyage Aloha: Russia has concluded. The series will return in February. Tickets include food and drink, with a small additional cost for photo downloads.
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