Revolutionary Cell Block Tango :: The Saint At Large Presents Rites XXXI: The Black Party
by Mark Thompson and Robert Doyle
EDGE Contributor
Sunday Feb 28, 2010

Saint At Large Black Party XXXI

GOLPE! reads one headline. There’s anger in the air. Revolutionary fervor. Another headline reads:GOVERNMENT DEMOLISHED. NEW BLACK PARTY APPEARS.

Taken from the Spanish term “golpe de estado,” golpe means coup d’etat: the sudden overthrowing of a state government-which means that, once again, this year’s Black Party invite has caught the American zeitgeist and the revolutionary zeal in the vox populi with uncanny prescience. The Great Recession, with its discomfiting parallels to the final years of the Weimar Republic, has unleashed the demons of debauchery and decadence, with a burning desire for a totally new order-and that’s where Black Party XXXI commences.

With a twelve-page backstory narrative, this year’s Black Party celebration of the arrival of the vernal equinox reads like an amalgam of Kiss of the Spider Woman meets “Cell Block Tango” in 1932 Buenos Aires, where a militaristic regime with a penchant for roses and rough tango has seized control. Matadors and masochists commingle with sadists and Santeria. It’s the black of night and totalitarianism-and the red of blood, roses, martyrdom-and saints.

Ever since Bruce Mailman opened the original Saint in 1980, and celebrated the vernal equinox with a two-night Black Party (hence the reason for the 31st Black Party thirty years later), men from around the world have congregated in New York City to celebrate an annual rite that echoes the ancient Druids. With the enforced closing of the Saint in 1988 (due to the burgeoning AIDS crisis and city crackdowns), and the untimely passing of Mailman in 1994, the Black Party, for the past nineteen years, has been helmed by Stephen Pevner, the extraordinary visionary behind the Saint-at-Large, and his exceedingly gifted creative staff, all of whom work to explore the darker side of Dionysian, sybaritic revels. Recent incarnations of this blackest of nights have included such all-encompassing themes as Schwarzwald, the Black Forest, Lucha Libre, free wrestling, and the underside of NASCAR-as well as The Dangerous Black Party For Boys, all of them immersing patrons in theatrical environments that withstand comparison to Vegas, Cirque de Soleil, and les egouts de Paris. (Read more…)

Tickets for LOL

WWW.SAINTATLARGE.COM

Tim Gunn Returns as Master of Ceremonies

7 PM Cocktail Reception
Hors d’oeuvres - Open bar

9 PM Runway Show by Saks Fifth Avenue
featuring Resort 2009 Collections for men and women by:
Burberry, Diesel, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Michael Kors, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, Vince and more

Can’t make it this year? Help GMHC share its message with your friends by inviting them to Fashion Forward…

GMHC Facebook fans page invite: http://www.facebook.com/pages/GMHC/153587203838?ref=mf

To purchase tickets, please visit www.gmhc.org or call 212.367.1389

Spare Times

CLUB PURGATORIO

Feel free to insert your own joke about the frightfulness of New York night life, but the owners of the Box, the downtown club known for its extravagant, lascivious stage shows, may have the last laugh.

For the first time, Simon Hammerstein and Randy Weiner, partners in the Box, have opened a haunted house: a 15,000-square-foot, three-story, adults-only haunted house, in the old China Club in Midtown. The idea, Mr. Weiner said on a preopening tour last week, was to amp up the traditional Halloween experience. (Read more…)

ALL SAINTS UPDATE: New start time 1AM!

WWW.SAINTATLARGE.COM

BSA Concert Information

Freemasons Shakedown the Island
by Mark Thompson and Robert Doyle
EDGE Contributor
Monday Sep 21, 2009

(Source:Mark and Robert)

As yet another boatload of exuberant party boyz disembarked on Governors Island, two guys on bikes, waiting to return to Manhattan, watched in gawking amazement-until finally one turned to the other and said, “What? Did we not get the memo?”

And it was right then, as the sun set behind Jersey, that opening DJ Corey Craig broke into a remix of that contagious chestnut, Patrice Rushen’s “Haven’t You Heard?”

Maybe those two bike boys missed the memo about Saint at Large’s 30th season opener, Freemasons at Governors Island, but hundreds of other wayward party boyz got the word-and happy they were to romp carefree through the night.

First of all, the setting: think Pinocchio at Pleasure Island, a haven for incorrigible party boyz-with multi-colored neon palm trees, and smoke machines and concessionaires selling confections and intoxicating liquids. No school, no rules-nothing but sand in the shoes and summer fun.

And it was the summer anthem, “When Love Takes Over,” that really got the kidz going-and the flaggers on the floor, while onstage, Corey Craig got ready to cede the house to Freemasons-when suddenly someone grabbed the mike and yelled, “I’mma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.”

(Source:Mark and Robert)

Bouncing all over the asphalt
~
Insane! The boyz went crazy-and stayed that way! With smoke billowing and red lights flashing, Freemasons took over-and right from the start, the boyz were whooping it up and bouncing all over the asphalt, working it out, shaking it down, so that when Freemasons really hit their stride with remixes of “Love on My Mind,” “Sexual Healing,” “Déjà Vu,” “Just Can’t Get Enough,” “Lola’s Theme,” “When Doves Cry,” “Rain Down Love,” “If I Were A Boy,” and “Ring the Alarm,” the floor was filled with boyz who were dancing, really dancing-and we’re not talking about that shuffle/shuffle/back-and-forth sometimes found on packed dance floors-and sometimes mistaken for dance. No, these boyz were truly feeling the music, absorbing the beat, screaming the words, shouting out love, as if they’d been plugged directly into an electric socket, with the current shooting out from their every extremity. To look around the floor, to see these kidz hollering out happiness while they shook down the house was to recognize anew the exultancy of music and dance.

After all, dance is as old as humanity itself, with the first dance in history born around the campfires of hunters-as an expression of joy. And last night, Freemasons had a direct link to that tradition, a high-speed connection to primeval joy that reached its apex with their remix of Whitney’s new “Million Dollar Bill,” a song so vibrant and ecstatic that both arms-and feet-were in the air, simultaneously, the whole crowd over.

(Source:Mark & Robert)

A love-filled summer send-off
~
Who was there? A houseful of hotties, from Manhattan, Brooklyn, Fire Island, South Beach, Brazil, and Montreal, and loads of Saint family members, including Alan (particularly ebullient) and Joey, and Armando, and Michael South Beach, and Alex B. and James C., and Jaker and Billy (and Jackson), and Marc Berkley (w/hand puppy)-and a delighted Steve Pevner, who, with his Saint at Large crew (with help from Highline Ballroom) created both a love-filled summer send-off-and a welcome to autumn.

Thirty Septembers ago, the very first Saint invite arrived in the mail, heralding the opening on September 20, 1980 of what would become the most fabulous and unsurpassable gay club of all time, the Saint-and in the ensuing thirty years, legions of Saintheads have joined an ever-expanding family connected by music and dance. Last night’s celebratory and soulful crowd was a testament to Saint founder Bruce Mailman’s groundbreaking vision-and particularly fitting for the opening of the Saint at Large’s 30th season.

RELATED LINKS
Freemasons Governor’s Island Photo-Album