Dan’s Papers March 25, 2011 danspapers.com Page 20
Escape
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about other logistics, including the Highway Department and the Fire Department. He described the event in further detail. “There will be performance art, interactive installations and food and dancing. The food will be provided by Silkstone, one of the firms we use in Manhattan, and it will be a real culinary experience. The event will begin at 9 a.m. on Friday and for each of the three days go to about 11 p.m. There will be 22 bands in a dance tent, one after the other. Security will be coordinated between the Shinnecock Security Group, the State Police and our private security organization. There will be lounge areas, a children’s area for families, a disco tent which will have the actual disco ball from Studio 54 and the actual dance floor from
Saturday Night Fever.” Other groups involved in the production include Workman Entertainment and the Cake Group. He also said he didn’t think this event would make any money to speak of, and if you do the math, you can see that that is probably true. He said it was a sort of “starter” event, on a small property, and it was Fellowes’ first effort in America on the East Coast, where nothing like this exists now. “We expect to have more of these, either on other tribal reservations in addition to this one, or in other places,” he said. He also said the contract was a great benefit to the Shinnecock Nation, not only because of the money being paid to them for the leasing of the
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property, but also because the event will fix up many of the facilities on the Pow Wow Grounds— and leave some of what they think the Shinnecocks could use behind—for example, the playground. The Shinnecocks, who have for generations suffered great poverty, will emerge from that poverty with the recent designation of their becoming a Federally Recognized Tribe. But the benefits of that, which come through the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, came too late for anything to get to them in the 2011 budget. This will be a welcome help for the tribe indeed. In some ways, I feel personally responsible for this event coming to the Shinnecock Reservation. Six years ago, when the nearby Southampton Campus of Long Island University collapsed, and with it the popular “All for the Sea” rock festival held on its soccer and lacrosse grounds, the Shinnecocks reached out to me to approach the then-President of SUNY Stony Brook University, Shirley Strum Kenny, who was now hoping to buy the campus from LIU. Perhaps a rock festival could be held at the Pow Wow Grounds to replace “All for the Sea.” I did make the call, but nothing came of it. The next year, PETA, the organization that pickets places where they feel there is animal abuse, began picketing the very popular Clyde Beatty Circus that was for years a staple presentation on the Elk’s Grounds on County Road 39. PETA felt that circuses in general abuse elephants, and though they had no direct problem with this particular circus, they succeeded in getting the Town to pass a rule that they would only allow permits for circuses that have no elephants. The Clyde Beatty people complied for two years. (Think Dog and Pony Show.) But then, I put them in touch with the Shinnecock Indian Nation. The Nation has no rule against elephants. And so now, every summer, when the circus comes to town, it comes to the Pow Wow grounds, with elephants. I point this out because as I said at the beginning of this story, the permits and contracts have been made with the Shinnecock Indian Nation. It’s their rules. And that is why, up until now, there has been no publicity about this upcoming event from the Shinnecocks or the Town, because it is only a courtesy that the Town is involved. There is nothing for the taxpayers of the Town to discuss. It’s taking place in a neighboring country that America set up as an Indian reservation 150 years ago that happens to be surrounded by the Town of Southampton. To get more of handle on Escape to New York, I spoke by phone to Freddie Fellowes. “It used to be that people came to a festival where people interacted with each other,” he told me. “But a generation ago, in America, a festival came to be a bunch of guys standing in front of a stage where gigs went on. Meanwhile, in Europe, we have been carrying on the earlier tradition. So now I will bring it back to you.” “Give me three specific things that will go on at Shinnecock to help readers understand what you’re coming with,” I asked. “Everything happens spontaneously. But I will give you three possibilities. The Unofficial Derby—a race where you can enter yourself, but you must be dressed up as a horse. The Cartoon (continued on page 22)