June 4, 2010
Alegria Xanadu: Alegria Memorial Day @ Pacha
Mark Thompson READ TIME: 3 MIN.
It was the opium den of your fantasy: a bordello-red pleasure dome hung with gargantuan Chinese lanterns and a green dragon so serpentine he required dissection above the dance floor-and yet still that dragon breathed fire, for this was Alegria and this party was smoking.
The recent closure of Alegria's home, M2, forced Alegria producer, Ric Sena, to find a new locale for his much-loved party-but just as Kublai Khan built his Shang-tu, the Alegria family found their Xanadu at Pasha for Alegria Memorial Day.
Ten years ago, Alegria first made its mark on the city of New York with steaming hot parties on 46th Street at the club then known as Sound Factory-and Sunday night's Memorial Day return to the scene of the original firehouse recalled those marathon events where the party burned so hot, the paint would peel from the walls.
What do you get when you put a Brazilian and a Portuguese in the same deejay booth? You get HEAT. You get HOT. Hot, hot, hot: this party was burning from the first beat, with searing sets from both Renato Cecin and Paulo that fired up the house and scorched the roof.
All through the labyrinthine pleasure palace, in every nook and cranny and every hidden lounge, spread across three floors of mischievous, frisky mayhem, the boyz were jumping and strutting and strolling and throwing it o-vah. This wasn't kiki lite; this was kiki to the railing, and up and down the stairs, and all across the floor.
Rolling in the House of Hotties, fanning the flames
There were boys from Miami, from South Beach and D.C., from Brazil and the Jersey shore: a smorgasbord of dazzlers, working fans and fezzes, and embroidered headgear, festooned with golden dragons, and butterfly suspenders, and all of them sending out friendliness, radiating such happiness that the entire club seemed to have overdosed on unbottled bliss.
And right around five am, just after Cecin served the crowd his fiercely contagious remix of Fergie's "Meet Me Halfway," just when it seemed as if Alegria had reached its boiling point, along came that Portuguese prince, Paulo, with the perfect segue, his blazing remix of Xtina's "Not Myself Tonight." Conflagration!
The fire burned out of control as the man in the booth said, "I'm burning up." "You want some pots-n-pans?" he asked. "Now let me see you work." And the Nurse Cracker track poured from the speakers, arms pumping the air, and the cowbell clanged, and all the girls sang "I Need A Soldier." And all through the burning house, the lights blazed red, yellow, green, and blue, thanks to the wizardry of lighting magician, Stephen Wyker.
Three labyrinthine floors of mischievous, frisky mayhem
Some parties are like a mega-dose of multi-vitamins, a booster shot to the ass that kick starts the circulation and sends the energy skyrocketing-and this was one of them. Sometimes it's as simple as a sea of smiling faces: such big smiles and such white teeth-and the realization that these people are happy, genuinely happy. Happy, smiling boys like Corey Hill, and Tod and Gorm, and Ricky Michael Perez, and Charles and Moose, and DJ Billy Lace, and Score boyz Billy and Luis, and DJ Sean McMahon, and Dr. Rusty, and sinfully hot Abel, and Tre, and Chris Ryan, and Erica Gabriel (working Chanel), and DJ Eddie Martinez, and Betto Mares-Kersnowski, and Nicky "Manchurian" Nitichai-all rolling in the House of Hotties, all fanning the flames.
"You have to work to get this good. Work to be this good," and yes, he was. He was so very good, that Portuguese prince, that Paulo-so good that one boy said to us, "Oh, I hope Paulo's giving out CDs. I don't want to let this go." Understood. Completely.
There were bitch tracks and snitch tracks, and all the while, the O-vahness posse was turning it out and working the mezzanine like it was a Balenciaga catwalk. "Better than 1, 2, 4, 3, better than me"-it was better than a bag of chips.
One thing this party made perfectly clear was that Alegria makes its home wherever it lands. It ain't easy keeping a party going in Manhattan these days, but thanks to Sena's acumen and the loyalty of the Alegria family, Alegria still burns white-hot.
A long-term New Yorker and a member of New York Travel Writers Association, Mark Thompson has also lived in San Francisco, Boston, Provincetown, D.C., Miami Beach and the south of France. The author of the novels WOLFCHILD and MY HAWAIIAN PENTHOUSE, he has a PhD in American Studies and is the recipient of fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, and Blue Mountain Center. His work has appeared in numerous publications.
