Thousands of people have again descended on a stretch of sand on a barrier island in the Grande Baie Sud, a community of around 700 houses with an extremely disproportionate cultural influence: the pines of the Fire Island.
Since 1999, the annual celebration of Fire Island Pines has been what its executive producer Guy Smith describes as “the biggest dance evening all night on a beach in America”.
“Each bed, each braided carpet, each terrace chair, each floating explosion made someone sleeping during the pines week,” said Smith, known as “Disco Daddy” to those who reach him on a talkie-talkie this weekend during the party.
This is what Stonewall Community Foundation – the beneficiary of more than $ 1.5 million in donations during the 26 years of the party – calls “one of the oldest annual parts in the world”. But for many in the community, it is much more than a chance to dance on the sand.
“The message is of self-esteem,” said Klesh, director of production of the Pines party, “Papa Bear”.
And for some participants, it is also a symbol of resistance during a year when the Trump administration tries to reduce the return routes for affirmative care, the specific crisis services for the LGBTQ disappear and the federal government has stripped the references to the trans and in treichants of the national monument Stonewall web page.
“Especially this year, when our community is targeted for an escalation of attacks against the rights and dignity of the LGBTQ, our gathering becomes more than joyful – it becomes essential,” wrote Henry Robin, president of the Fire Island Pines Homeowners Association, in the Journal of the Annual Community on the part of the events of the event. “Dancing freely, expressing us openly and celebrating each other without fear is a radical affirmation of our pride, our unity and our resilience.”
This year, the theme is Dreamscape, inspiring a wide variety of homemade surreal costumes – disco ball hats from other innovative helmet creations, barely hallucinogenic prints and clocks in Gogo – and a lot of vaporous and ephemeral decor to twin with sound dance music. The party started on Friday and continues until Sunday.
The community newspaper also includes supporting shows of many local officials – letters of congratulations from Governor Kathy Hochul, representative Andrew R. Garbarino, meaning. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, and advertisements from Macy’s, local businesses and various portraits of the PET pine directory.
Raf Kuhn, co -president of the Pines Party Committee, said that the party was “to meet and give people the opportunity to express themselves in an environment where they can feel comfortable and feel.”
“It’s stimulating and I think it has training effects when people come back to the world in a way and go through the bay and come back to their daily lives,” Kuhn said.
For Elijah Batchelor, executive producer of the Pool Pool and Closing parties of the Pine Party, the Resistance has always been an integral part of the community.
“I think it is something that anyone spent time in pines, and whoever is gay, queer – any part of the LGBTQIA + community – knows: that we have always existed. We have always resisted, and no matter who is in power and what is in any part of the world, we were going to have a good time,” said Batcheor.
The organizers expect it to be the largest to date, partly thanks to the gravely eroded beach which obtains a recent restoration and expansion of the body of army engineers (the health of the beach affects not only the community of immediate pines, but also all the dynamics of the big bay of Long Island).
“In the past two years, we had to force the number of participants and design the event for a closer beach” due to erosion, said Kuhn. But no more: the beach is now more than 100 feet wide.
Although technically 26 years old, the origins of the event go back to the morning party, an annual fundraising on weekends and rage launched by the organization of AIDS services The Gay Men’s Health Crisis from the 1980s to 1998.
And the morning party was inspired by an even earlier event, the 1979 beach, described by the Fire Island News at the time as “the most ambitious event undertaken in the history of the Barrier Beach community of Fire Island”. He was assisted by Andy Warhol, the People village, Farrah Fawcett, his majors Lee of the time of the time and some 4,000 other revelers. Tony Curtis, noted the news from Fire Island, wanted to win her helicopter in the middle of the beach activities but was denied authorization.
Beach has managed to collect enough money to buy a truck for the pines fire service.
“I was the last person to drive the firefighter, a 1966 Ford whom we called Big Red that I used to build [the first Pines Parties] Originally, “said Smith, the executive producer of the event, adding
“It rusted and they put a truck with a tilting dumpster in the back. It has always been a very, very bootstrap party. ”
The scapiness is the key to the atmosphere, added Smith.
The management of the event is not easy, especially given the difficulty of putting miles of several days on the continent on an island accessible almost exclusively by Ferry, with extremely limited vehicle access.
“We are a remote island off the coast. The logistics of building everything on the beach … The workforce it takes is exhausting,” said creative director of Pines Party, Roberto “Cheryl” Montenegro.
Last year, it took paid and volunteer staff of more than 500 people to execute the event.
Although it is a logistics nightmare to produce, many of those who even become peripherals involved have been deeply inspired by experience over the years.
“I have radically changed my life for this party. This is a party that changes life,” said Ammaturo, co -president of the Pine Party Committee, who has been a volunteer to celebrate for six years, co -chairs for the last four.
He said he really feels at home in the pines.
“We were organizing a party, and now we have become a family,” he said.
