Interview with an expat: Stephane Serra aka Hank Disaster

About Stephane Serra (aka Hank Disaster)
› Co-creator & Art director of Bon Esprit
› Entertainer, writer, event designer, DJ & producer
› South of France and around, French West Indies - Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Where does the name Bon Esprit come from?
The name "Bon Esprit" is taken from the French journalist and radio speaker Alain Maneval, who was sharing great music options / suggestions. Bon Esprit was his way of expressing something cool and relaxing; something that gives a good feeling… We thought the expression reflects our idea of a great evening.

How did it start?
Back in June 2009, I and my friend Cecile started hanging around with other French and at some point we decided to go deeper: Jean Baptiste "Blusher" found a bar in Reguliersdwarstraat, we posted a Facebook event for a party and 300 people showed up!

We started throwing parties on a monthly basis and after the "first experiments," we were charging a couple of euros so we could afford to built and establish better line up every time.

Code 21 and Minibar were big hits and thus, we decided to find a stage, Winston Kingdom.

We established a company and started live acts, underground artists, mixing... Rock & Roll with electro noise… such as: The Anomalys, We love Machines, Children su madre, Fata “El moustache” morgana…

Soon, with Winston's collaboration, we met our trustful sponsors: Absolut Vodka and Zarb Champagne.

What about the Bon Esprit team?
I am in charge of the programme and artists, venues and partners, while the following have been - and some still are - involved even though most of them work on their projects:
› Bertrand "LePop" was responsible of our visuals for more than a year before creating his own fashion brand.
› Romain "Shishibey" is DJing, creating the werdest dress codes and doing all the things that he is the only one to do (No comments).
› Nassim "Nashroom" takes care of the finance (project and pre-parties).
› Jean Baptiste "Blusher," Ulysse "Mr U" and Cecile "Minou" make sure that everybody is enjoying every second (by using our famous Absolut Vodka Guns for example)!
› Gregory Duris and Dylan Glyn Jones are in charge of our visuals and Monyart is our official photographer.

Tell me more about your parties
The inspiration is French Punk Chic; we throw parties for people who like surprises! We had, for example, Le Cat Fight (8 women DJing)...

...fancy dress picnicks in Sarphati Park, iPod Battle in Mini Bar, Southern Redneck party with crazy electro and much more.

We believe in quality and diversity; we want to offer our crowd as many happenings as possible at the same time.

For example, thanks to Linda and Jeff, we brought a Zarb Champagne and Absolut vodka bar at Jeffery West's shop - a designer shoe shop with an incredible identity - and mixed it with Fiiix from Ficha and temporary expo of artists including Monyart, Amstersam and Monark, three very talanted Amsterdam-based artists.

Your daily life inspiration?
Art and especially, poetry. Poetry is my Thai boxing!

Upcoming events & projects?
Once per month at House of Rising (Saturday) as well as Winston Kingdom until September; we have already booked several bands (Fusee Doree, Fata "El moustache" Morgana, The Brimstone Days, Bomber Leo, King Kong Kobra) and DJs (NoaBoner, Bloody Disco, S.A.D.P, Pascal Montfort and his parisian friends, Alex Kaseta).

The Itinerant Zarb Champagne bar will keep on moving all around town with a stop at Jeffery West's shop in the beginning of June and we will organise a number of private parties for companies.

Finally, we work with Audiopleasures and also discussing about teaming up with some talented expat crews to organise a festival in September but sssshhhhhhhh!!!! It's a secret!

Agnese enjoys interviewing people with a story to tell, a project to unfold, a dream to share… always with an amazing bottle of wine selected for the occasion.

For Stephane's unique style, Purato, Feudo di Santa Tresa, 2009, Nero D'Avola di Sicilia (still red, 13,5%) was chosen.

Produced by organically grown grapes, one of the "main expressions of Sicily" took the third place at the Internationaler Bioweinpreis (2010).

Plus recycled glass (85%) and packaging with vegetable-based ink!

Photos by Monyart