Sucessful street party, London [& videos]

1.05.2008
The Space Hijack­ers May­day street par­ty is being held in Shep­herd Mar­ket, May­fair.

Mayday '08 maypoleMayday '08 stocksMayday FITwatch1.05.2008
The Space Hijack­ers May­day street par­ty is being held in Shep­herd Mar­ket, May­fair.

Lots of fun had by all despite heavy police pres­ence. Sev­er­al sound sys­tems. Danc­ing. Act­ing. Booz­ing. May­pole.

Although the police sur­round­ed the rev­ellers in Shep­herd Mar­ket they did­n’t stop indi­vid­u­als com­ing and going and I did­n’t see any arrests.

—-

Orig­i­nal call-out:
Mayday '08 street party flier
May­day Meet­ing Point — 1708 revis­it­ed

Come and join us for a cel­e­bra­tion and re-enact­ment of the state’s oppres­sion of the tra­di­tion­al May Fayre in May­fair. A col­lab­o­ra­tion between Space Hijack­ers and The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Play­ers.…

MAYDAY MEETING POINTS

1) Space Hijack­ers, Peas­ants, Aris­toc­ra­cy, Per­form­ers, Mer­chants, Ped­dlers, Strum­pets and Vir­gins Meet in Green Park by Green Park tube, we will then head off to the May Fayre at 2:03pm prompt­ly

2) Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police, Fools, Sol­diers and Vagabonds Meet out­side Bond Street tube sta­tion, we will then head off to the May Fayre at 2:34 prompt­ly

Please note it is very impor­tant you do not join the wrong meet­ing point, oth­er­wise you will look like a total fool!

Call this num­ber for live updates of where we will be — 07513335777

Things to bring:

Musi­cal Instru­ments, Corsets, Hay, Farm Ani­mals, Food to share, Drinks, Manure, Stocks, May­poles, Venet­ian Masks, Mum­mers, Police, Flags, Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Fer­vour, Bar­ri­cades, Mead, Babies and Roy­al­ty

x x x x x

May­day 2008 is the 300th anniver­sary of the last free May­day before the Grand Jury sup­pres­sion of the tra­di­tion­al May Fayre in cen­tral Lon­don; a riotous, rau­cous cel­e­bra­tion of fer­til­i­ty and free­dom. From the 1st of May each year, and for up to two weeks after­wards, the peo­ple stopped work­ing, reject­ed their nor­mal rou­tines then danced, drank, laughed and made love in the streets, jeer­ing at the con­trol­ling fig­ures of the Church and State, and turn­ing every­thing they could upside down.

It was known as such “a nurs­ery of vice and debauch­ery”, that after 1708 the author­i­ties, hav­ing had enough of this dan­ger­ous free­dom and sub­ver­sion, shut it down. Although there were some attempts at reviv­ing it, the creep­ing spec­tre of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion made sure it could­n’t con­tin­ue, as the area of the fayre was grad­u­al­ly built over with palaces and play­grounds for the rich.

To com­mem­o­rate this sig­nif­i­cant anniver­sary, and the still thriv­ing tra­di­tion of over the top state con­trol, the Space Hijack­ers and the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police proud­ly present a col­lab­o­ra­tive re-enact­ment of the end of this tra­di­tion­al May Fayre. Our mod­ern-day inter­pre­ta­tion of the cycle of upris­ing and sup­pres­sion is in keep­ing with the attempt­ed repres­sion of par­ties, protests and gath­er­ings enact­ed by the state through­out the ages.

In act one, the Space Hijack­ers will be invit­ing peo­ple to join a may­day street par­ty in it’s tra­di­tion­al home, with music, bands, food and rev­el­ry. This will be lat­er fol­lowed by the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Play­ers, who will be re-enact­ing a clas­sic clamp­ing down on civ­il lib­er­ties and free­dom of the peo­ple.

All are wel­come to this cel­e­bra­tion, bring food, bands, mead, rum, cod­pieces, bales of hay, 18th cen­tu­ry pros­ti­tutes, music, laugh­ter, wonky teeth, corsets, bus­tles, spit roasts and vir­gins danc­ing around poles.

The exact loca­tion of the fayre is still a close­ly guard­ed secret, how­ev­er it will be revealed clos­er to the date here on our web­site.

STUFF YOU SHOULD TO KNOW

COSTUME IDEAS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1700–1750_in_fashion

http://www.marquise.de/en/1700/pics/1700a.shtml

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion/round/18th_century_men/formal_wool/index.html

http://www.freewebs.com/fashionmuseum/1700.htm

MAYDAY HISTORY:

http://libcom.org/library/a‑history-of-mayday

http://www.urban75.org/mayday02/history.html

http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/grub/mayfair.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/news/may/mayday/mayday_history.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robin_Goodfellow

–

http://www.spacehijackers.org

—

Watch this video or this one.