Welcome to Saturday Night in America
Photographs by Ash Adams, Nabil Harb, Timothy Ivy, Sylvia Jarrus, Stacy Kranitz, Chris Perez, Adali Schell, and Anne Vetter
Each day demands its own body language, and Saturday night, I think, is best expressed through outstretched arms. This is the posture of revelers reaching for drinks across the bar or for friends across the dance floor. That body language—loose-limbed, open, seeking—is not limited to the club. The Saturday-night feeling can be found in any place where a few are gathered, when the weight of the week suddenly falls away.
This summer, The Atlantic commissioned eight photographers to capture that weekend buoyancy in eight places across the country. The resulting portfolios celebrate Saturday nights that are flirty, reverent, raucous, and wholesome, including a pop-up party in Detroit, Michigan; a roller-skating rink in McMinnville, Tennessee; and a state fair in Palmer, Alaska, where evening visitors stroll drenched in the region’s nighttime sun. Across these images, outstretched arms beckon to us—as in Adali Schell’s snapshots of Los Angeles youths roaming rooftops and empty lots, grasping for cigarettes and firecrackers and one another; or those of the spectators at a North Mississippi drag strip, whom Timothy Ivy photographs mid-whoop during a race. A queen sashaying down the stage of the Parrot, one of Florida’s oldest gay bars, looks about ready to ascend under the rapt gaze of the crowd and Nabil Harb’s camera.
A Saturday night can set a whole neighborhood in joyful motion. In Chris Perez’s photographs of a Harlem block party, a warm flash imbues roadside card games and riverside dancing with the glow and zip of a disco. In one portrait, a young brown-skinned girl in a pink-striped dress sips from a juice pouch while staring at the camera with soft defiance. Cozy and confident, she’s got the best gear for a great Saturday night: a little drink, a little entertainment, a little cash on the side.
The week’s end can be festive; it can also be reflective. On Saturday nights in a Boston suburb, a group of queer Jewish friends perform a havdalah ceremony to mark, in openhearted community, the closing of Shabbat. The photographer Anne Vetter documents the ritual’s beauty, their camera lingering on a roped candle held aloft, its flame cutting through the dusk. Havdalah also honors the start of another week, which is the quiet work of all Saturday-night celebrations: a burst of light to guide us to new mornings.