Who needs summer in the Caribbean with Midsummer Night swing in New York

Fri, Jul 20th 2012, 09:21 AM

I have not visited New York City for a while; returning to the city after a long stay away from the Big Apple has been for me an enchanting experience.
Definitely, the citizens of New York City must find a way to keep their patrician mayor in power for one more term. He might be the best mayor that any city in the world may have, as he puts in a full day of engaging work for the symbolic income of one dollar a year, while he leads his phalanx of commissioners to do the same for a much higher income, of course.
I can hardly recognize old neighborhoods such as the flower district in Manhattan, where giant buildings such as the one accommodating the Sofitel hotel perched along the Avenue of the Americas provide a majestic urban column that rivals the uptown Sixth Avenue vista, near the Rockefeller Center and the Hilton hotel.
Times Square, with its plaza-like setting, is an open air cafe amongst the tohubohu of the cars cruising on both sides of the oasis divider. Late at night, this center of the world is filled with people of all nations who play the narcissist game of admiring themselves on a giant television screen.
The New York renaissance is all over town, whether you are wandering in the old Park slope in Brooklyn where the town houses rival in price and in splendor the Park Avenue district of Manhattan. It is also in Queens that has now its own casino where a deluxe bus will bring you there for the modest price of one dollar per trip.
More 'waou' gasping is the rendition of the new Lincoln Center. The oracles of Adelphi would feel at ease in such a setting, three majestic buildings, a modern imitation of the Acropolis of Athens in a 6.8 acre campus-like setting, with fountains, flowers, and seats under the trees to gasp the panorama that might be the best imitation of God's lost paradise.
It is in this plaza that the trustee of Lincoln Center has regaled the commoners with free public events to compensate for the high priced concerts, dance and theater produced all year long inside the majestic buildings for the society people, who dress up almost nightly for the occasion.
For the last 40 years, I have been a regular to these outdoor events, where the musical roots of almost every ethnic group has a chance to exhibit itself for the privilege of sharing with the larger citizenry the strong emotions that their cultural roots engender. I have missed some few nights; as such, I rushed to gain what I could from the reminder of the program.
The Lincoln Center has redesigned the Damrosch Park bandshell to suite a dancing lounge (with a modest fee of $17) , a stage for the musicians, a seating area for the VIP who prefer not to mingle with the crowd, and a large setting for the public to mingle, dance and frolic at ease, freely.
Upon presenting my press credentials to be admitted freely on the dancing stage, the director of the program entered into a bargaining deal with me. You will be let in free, if you agree to publicize the program on Haitian roots, suspecting through my French namesake, I was from Haiti. I promised I will: Haitian Heritage Day with La Troupe Mackandal will take place on Sunday, August 5.
I even promised more; I will write a story about the event and profiting from the bargaining session I will advocate for Trinidadian and Jamaican music in next year's program. Yes they will be there, I was told.
The program consists in two different major undertakings. The Midsummer Night swing that started on June 26 to finish on July 14, The Lincoln Center Out of Doors follows almost immediately from July 25 to August 12. Stay a little bit more in New York and you will be regaled by free outdoor classical music in the parks and later the West Indian Carnival on Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, followed by the U.S. Open in Flushing.
It is the Mecca of tennis lovers, where the aficionados continue their vagabond wandering from Roland Garros, France, to Wimbledon, England, admiring the tennis players, usually featuring Serena Williams beating each and every opponent.
While the Midsummer Night swing is about music by big bands such as Harlem Renaissance Orchestra (July 14) and other bands such as Johnny Colon and his orchestra, more legendary big bands are also in residence at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors.
It is more about seeking and presenting the roots music of the different ethnic groups that represent the citizenry of New York City. It is indeed an innocent pleasure to watch grownups let go in the magic of dancing.
I asked the organizer of the event, how much it costs to stage this extravaganza. The policy of Lincoln Center is not to talk about money but to use money to satisfy its customers. Indeed they did. Everything was designed to please the senses, with no concern for the price: sight, sound and sensation, it lacks only the jasmine plants to produce the strong perfuming smell of its open white flowers at night.
The crowd responds to that generosity; at the plaza of Lincoln Center you find men and women at their best, smiling, and dancing with each other in that communal feeling of bonding that Barbara Ehrenreich in Dancing in the Streets called the ecstatic ritual practiced by the aborigines as well as by the modern man to cement the society.
Who needs the Caribbean in summer? I do.
In fact, I am packing to go back to Haiti, so I will not miss the rituals of the collective effervescence of the fiesta of the Saints. From mid-July to the end of August, several towns that celebrate their patron saints abandon themselves to the spirit of dance, where voodoo and Catholic rituals intermingle freely.
People will come from all over the nation to give themselves into the Fiesta of St. Marguerite on July 20 in the town of Port Margot, followed by the very voodoo spell fiesta of St. Jacques le Majeur in the town of La Plaine du Nord on July 24, then proceed to the very Catholic and frolic fiesta of St. Ann in the town of Limonade on July 26, followed by the fiesta of St. Martha in the bucolic village of Marmelade. They are all rural fiestas that need much international promotion because they represent the last vestige of Middle Ages pilgrimages in this very modern world.
I will be remiss not to invite guests from everywhere, in particular the Catholic community to come and visit my home town of Grand River on August 30, which is celebrating the 300th anniversary of its foundation as the parish of St. Rose. The atmosphere will rival the piety of Easter Mass at Easter at the plaza of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, as well as the debauchery of St. Patrick in New York on March 17.
Watching my father at 100 years old holding tight on life, I reflect and ponder that life is short but sweet if one remembers to take advantage of all the rituals that this world offers. I will miss New York, while frolicking in the Caribbean awaiting the next Midsummer Night swing of the year to come.
In the meantime, the invitation is open to come to the Caribbean during winter time when the grip of frigid weather renders New York not as hospitable as it is during summer time.

o Jean H. Charles MSW, JD is executive director of AINDOH Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a kinder and gentle Caribbean zone for all. He can be reached at: jeanhcharles@aol. Printed with the permission of caribbeannewsnow.com.

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