What The Heck Was People's Beach Day and What Can Be Born of its Natural Beauty?!

People’s Beach Day, October 23rd 2021, 200 Dekalb Avenue - (Stu Leach)

“Feel free, this is the beach!” Was Miss LPK’s refrain as pedestrians encountered her, majestic, reading treatises and poetry on the sidewalk. For an afternoon in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a chunk of cement was transformed. “We often hear about midwifery, but what about housewifery?” Miss LPK embodied that ecosexual poetess, pouring truth, an orator in public. 

Miss LPK, poet and ideologue. - (Lindiwe Priscilla Kreskin)

The show did not stop and end with her transformational language. Before she took to the proverbial stage, Eli and Eliana graced our ears with folks songs from an old Greece, in the style known as Rebetiko. If a battle is to be won for the hearts and minds let it be with guitar and bouzouki.  

Eliana and Eli Hetko, playing rebetiko - (duskin drum)

Onward prowled the occasion in the form of Melanie Beth Curran, who in fact was putting on this whole event. She, with the help of fantastic fellows brought her new album, San Benedito Beach, into living, luscious three dimensions. As a crowd continued to grow, perched on Beach chairs, she serenaded the populous with popular track The Last Corona (On The Diamond Princess). A raucous singalong bringing us out of Pandemic doom and gloom could only be followed by that most soulful of entertainers, Yva Las Vegass.

Yva Las Vegass, Venezuelan-born-Seattle-native present-day-New Yorker changing LIVES. - (Stu Leach)

Yva! Who gracing us with her originals brought to life the struggles and triumphs of a thousand lives absolutely freaking done with white supremacy. She is a storyteller, a poet, a transmuter of time and space. And just right there in the middle of her musical, foot stop, deep and true oration when here comes Bochay with the sandwiches, Stu with the camera, and Scarlett with a PA.

Yva Las Vegass on San Benedito Beach - (duskin drum)

The whole thing occurred on the chunk of sidewalk where each and every Saturday there is a tradition of vending. For upon this entire block where the wares both used and handcrafted and found and repurposed being sold to those who might, at this change of season, be hungry for a brand new leather jacked painted with van Gogh’s face, ear bleeding, and the children are congregating now. 

Melanie Beth Curran, serenading the strip. - (Stu Leach)

Can imagine a way through this hurried state, this rushing state, this eager and consumptive stage, can we make time stop? Melanie Beth Curran takes up the fiddle and sings her mournful love lost dirge. She’s wearing a blue suit and between her and Miss LPK its been 1hr spent applying falsies. This is the America we dreamed about or could. Melanie Beth Curran plays Walkin’ The Line as Scarlet Dame, ambient techno artiste sets up her stage which is much more like an altar.

Scarlet Dame, melting hearts with beats - (Stu Leach)

And from this point on, all bets are off. Anything you see here you will never be able to recapture in language. But try I shall. The sun leans slanted over the brownstones and casts a yellow gold through the cast iron rails of this, Edmonds Playground. The beats begin subtlety and the audience is supercharged, immediately. Bochay is shelling black beans with Qiao and Yvonne, longtime vendor of this sidewalk, is marvelous with a smile on her face. 

Bochay and Qiao shellin’ beans - (duskin drum)

duskin really feeling it and some kids too. - (Stu Leach)

Scarlet Dame’s synthesizer - (Stu Leach)

Space and time open wide and duskin is dancing. Ricky and Dylan who came all the way from Seattle are joyful in their youth. A kid actually tells Melanie Beth Curran that when she grows up, this is what she wants to do. And that is the point. That is the point people. We make a new future, out of the old. Built from the now. Hearty and falling into fall she comes. And for one enchanted afternoon we were the Shepards of this coming realm. And for one enchanted afternoon, we opened the door.

Melanie Beth Curran celebrating her album release - (Stu Leach)

in the morning, getting set up with Dylan - (duskin drum)

People’s Beach Day was supported by The City Artist Corps Grant, given by the New York Foundation for the Arts to help revive public cultural life after the pandemic (inside of the pandemic). The grant put artists back to work! Items for People’s Beach Day were culled at Materials For the Arts, an insane warehouse in Long Island City full of Art supplies.

Thanks to everyone that came and everyone who bought an album! They are for sale here:

melaniecurran.bandcamp.com/album/san-benedito-beach

Songwriter Melanie Curran recognized with $5,000 City Artists Corps Grant From New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and the New York City Department Of Cultural Affairs (DCLA)

Melanie Curran Will Present People’s Beach Day on September 25th, 2021 as Part of Award Program

New York, NY – Songwriter Melanie Curran is one of 500 New York City-based artists to receive $5,000 through the City Artist Corps Grants program, presented by The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), with support from the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) as well as Queens Theatre.

Melanie Curran was recognized for People’s Beach Day, which will bring a live performance of her upcoming album, San Benedito Beach to the Clinton Hill/Fort Green neighborhood of New York in Brooklyn on September 25th.

People’s Beach Day is a live-music performance experience that channels the power of the people to create paradise no matter where they are.

The beach is a space where people can start anew after dark times. Melanie Curran’s album, San Benedito Beach, which will be released on American Standard Time Records in September of 2021, tells stories of people coming through hardship and finding new reasons to hope.

People’s Beach Day is a celebration for the public to experience a similar transformation. It is an event where visitors come together to collectively feel and dream. Instead of a real beach, the performance takes place in a park, parking lot, community garden or otherwise non-beach location in Brooklyn. This exemplifies that it is us, as people, who create that magical transformational quality the beach offers, through our will to collectively dream.

People’s Beach Day will happen around sunset. There will be a live performance of the album, and screenings of music videos through a projector. There will be a map and diorama making station on site where visitors can create their own visions of paradise. We can create the future as we move through the darkness out of the pandemic era.

Over the course of three award cycles, more than 3,000 artists will receive $5,000 grants to engage the public with artist activities across New York City’s five boroughs this summer and fall. Artists can use the grant to create new work or phase of a work, or restage preexisting creative activities across any discipline.

Members of the public can participate in City Artist Corps Grants programming by following the hashtag #CityArtistCorps on social media.

City Artist Corps Grants was launched in June 2021 by NYFA and DCLA with support from the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) as well as Queens Theatre. The program is funded by the $25 million New York City Artist Corps recovery initiative announced by Mayor de Blasio and DCLA earlier this year. The grants are intended to support NYC-based working artists who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. It is strongly recommended that a portion of the grant be used to support artist fees, both for the applying artist and any other artist that are engaged to support the project.

The Cycle 2 application will open on Tuesday, July 6 at 10:00 AM EDT and will close on Tuesday, July 20 at 10:00 AM EDT. The Cycle 3 application will open on Tuesday, July 27 at 10:00 AM EDT and close on Tuesday, August 10 at 10:00 AM EDT. Please visit NYFA’s website for full details and eligibility requirements.