Pride Weekend
Jun. 11th, 2006 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billeylerHaven't felt THIS connected to the Pride activities here in a long time.
Friday night, the 15 minute demo by the Wilde Bunch as part of the NEW Friday night performances went reasonably well, considering I just threw a choreo together last Monday on the fly. The only thing that DIDN'T happen right was that the microphone didn't feed into the monitor, so the dancers were having trouble hearing what I was calling. I don't know why that happens every year we perform. But the somewhat thin audience appreciated it, especially when we did the kamekaze virgin tip at the end, scooping out unsuspecting dancers from the audience.
The Venus and Mars is always a crowd pleaser. I'm glad we had an hour before the demo to walk through the two singing calls...even Dan made it through without too much of a bobble when it came to show time! I've never really used "Whoop, Square It Is" as a singing call...so many words! But it came off great, as did the 'singalong' of "Over the Rainbow." We left feeling good about it this time.
One of the treats of the evening was that we had a quick monsoon-style thunderstorm about 5, which cooled off the air a LOT and made it really pleasant to dance outside.
The other treat was that before the performances started at 7pm, there was a Pet Parade and Contest. I saw a lot of people there...must have been 40+ for the contest, INCLUDING Turtle-Bear with their sweet-as-pie Riley Doberman. They won the overall contest!
Rushed back to work to do the box office Settlement for Stomp, and that went smoothly, too...was there in plenty of time!
Saturday, we all gathered at R lot on the SE corner of UNM campus to decorate the Wilde Bunch float and set up the sound equipment. I'm so glad I bought a good 300 watt inverter last year!
This is the first time the WB has had a flatbed behind a truck, which gave them a welcome rest on the 2 1/4 mile death march down Central to the fairgrounds. Right as we were about to turn on to Central from Girard, none other than the Governor Bill Richardson was standing there to see us off. AFTER we turned the corner, there were the Fred Phelps contingent yelling through a megaphone at us. HAPPILY, my microphone and speakers were even louder...I said some nice things about gay and straight people dancing together in love and harmony, and about friendship set to music. The crowd loved it!
I do feel a little guilty that I just sit in a lawn chair on the back of the truck with an umbrella over me while 10-12 WBers are dancing/walking behind the float! I was able to walk them through several parade style figures, like "Grand Zoom," "Grand Dive," and "Grand Cast"...definitely had to workshop those, because you'd NEVER see that at other than a parade situation. We were able to stop and do 4 ladies chains, grand squares, and weave the ring several times. There were probably 5,000 or so along the route this time.
We met another hatemongering 'Christian' group at the end of the route, as we turned onto the fairgrounds road at San Pedro. Again, I outblasted their hate with love and peace messages, and again the crowd loved it.
The WB deserves kudos for the annual death march. It was already 90ish when we got to the fairgrounds, and not a cloud in the sky.
The WB lucked into a booth right at the entrance to the Main Street vendor area...quite by accident, one of our new dancers, Lois, had asked for a booth right next to WB last week. She was told the WB didn't HAVE a booth this year. THAT didn't go over well, since the Pride committee had cashed the check for the booth rental back in Feb! So as apologies, they gave us a space right as you come into the fairgrounds! Prime spot! Orlando in particular worked the heck out of promoting! Kudos!
The Main Street was packed with vendor booths, and even so early, there were maybe 5 or 6 thousand people meandering around. This was the largest pridefest I can remember. Since it was the 30th anniversary of the first official Pride march in 1977, one of the buildings had been turned into a archive gallery of all 30 years of history. Was very well done! Even had a theatre set up in one area, where people were watching videos of the 20+ plus years of the "Caught in the Act" variety show that Jon Hull had produced...the WB was part over every variety show except the first one in 1982 (they didn't exist then).
One area was set up in the hall with the complete 30 years of gay-related library, all the books for sale! I thought about picking up a few, but didn't get back there since my energy was starting to flag.
By 1:30, I had had it, and needed to get home to clean up and take a nap before going to the 4pm matinee of "Stomp." I opted NOT to take the bus back to the lot where I had parked, so walked the 2 1/4 miles back. It was invigorating, and I felt better for doing that.
I did get a nap in...great! After working at Popejoy till about 6, I invited the Live Nation rep, Joey, to have dinner with Danny and me, so we made a trip up to Fuddrucker's. After dropping Joey back at the theatre, I got ANOTHER nap in, before it was time to head back to the 8pm performance of "Stomp."
That done and out of there by 9:30, Danny and I changed for a night of 2-stepping at the Ranch. When we got there just after 10, the overflow lot was already filling up quickly. Amazing! We spent a nice 2 hours, dancing both 2-stepping and line dances. The DJ has hugely improved on presenting the line dances, and thanks to all my lessons, the floor is ALWAYS full of dancers.
Joey was supposed to meet us after another late dinner with the Stomp company folks down at the Brazilian "Tucanos" downtown. He hadn't showed by midnight, but as soon as we walked out the door to go home, there he was, in a line of 30 or so people WAITING to get into the Ranch. Also amazing...I've never seen a line to get into a bar in ABQ. EVER! Joey may or may not have decided to go in...he doesn't know anybody at the Ranch really, but we were definitely homeward bound for bed.
A good day, all around.
And now I'm relaxing, waiting for Leann to bring back my sound equipment. I need it today, since I'm calling a C1 dance at the house between the matinee and evening performance of Stomp.
In spite of the day's schedule, the being lazy part of this morning feels very like a day off!
Friday night, the 15 minute demo by the Wilde Bunch as part of the NEW Friday night performances went reasonably well, considering I just threw a choreo together last Monday on the fly. The only thing that DIDN'T happen right was that the microphone didn't feed into the monitor, so the dancers were having trouble hearing what I was calling. I don't know why that happens every year we perform. But the somewhat thin audience appreciated it, especially when we did the kamekaze virgin tip at the end, scooping out unsuspecting dancers from the audience.
The Venus and Mars is always a crowd pleaser. I'm glad we had an hour before the demo to walk through the two singing calls...even Dan made it through without too much of a bobble when it came to show time! I've never really used "Whoop, Square It Is" as a singing call...so many words! But it came off great, as did the 'singalong' of "Over the Rainbow." We left feeling good about it this time.
One of the treats of the evening was that we had a quick monsoon-style thunderstorm about 5, which cooled off the air a LOT and made it really pleasant to dance outside.
The other treat was that before the performances started at 7pm, there was a Pet Parade and Contest. I saw a lot of people there...must have been 40+ for the contest, INCLUDING Turtle-Bear with their sweet-as-pie Riley Doberman. They won the overall contest!
Rushed back to work to do the box office Settlement for Stomp, and that went smoothly, too...was there in plenty of time!
Saturday, we all gathered at R lot on the SE corner of UNM campus to decorate the Wilde Bunch float and set up the sound equipment. I'm so glad I bought a good 300 watt inverter last year!
This is the first time the WB has had a flatbed behind a truck, which gave them a welcome rest on the 2 1/4 mile death march down Central to the fairgrounds. Right as we were about to turn on to Central from Girard, none other than the Governor Bill Richardson was standing there to see us off. AFTER we turned the corner, there were the Fred Phelps contingent yelling through a megaphone at us. HAPPILY, my microphone and speakers were even louder...I said some nice things about gay and straight people dancing together in love and harmony, and about friendship set to music. The crowd loved it!
I do feel a little guilty that I just sit in a lawn chair on the back of the truck with an umbrella over me while 10-12 WBers are dancing/walking behind the float! I was able to walk them through several parade style figures, like "Grand Zoom," "Grand Dive," and "Grand Cast"...definitely had to workshop those, because you'd NEVER see that at other than a parade situation. We were able to stop and do 4 ladies chains, grand squares, and weave the ring several times. There were probably 5,000 or so along the route this time.
We met another hatemongering 'Christian' group at the end of the route, as we turned onto the fairgrounds road at San Pedro. Again, I outblasted their hate with love and peace messages, and again the crowd loved it.
The WB deserves kudos for the annual death march. It was already 90ish when we got to the fairgrounds, and not a cloud in the sky.
The WB lucked into a booth right at the entrance to the Main Street vendor area...quite by accident, one of our new dancers, Lois, had asked for a booth right next to WB last week. She was told the WB didn't HAVE a booth this year. THAT didn't go over well, since the Pride committee had cashed the check for the booth rental back in Feb! So as apologies, they gave us a space right as you come into the fairgrounds! Prime spot! Orlando in particular worked the heck out of promoting! Kudos!
The Main Street was packed with vendor booths, and even so early, there were maybe 5 or 6 thousand people meandering around. This was the largest pridefest I can remember. Since it was the 30th anniversary of the first official Pride march in 1977, one of the buildings had been turned into a archive gallery of all 30 years of history. Was very well done! Even had a theatre set up in one area, where people were watching videos of the 20+ plus years of the "Caught in the Act" variety show that Jon Hull had produced...the WB was part over every variety show except the first one in 1982 (they didn't exist then).
One area was set up in the hall with the complete 30 years of gay-related library, all the books for sale! I thought about picking up a few, but didn't get back there since my energy was starting to flag.
By 1:30, I had had it, and needed to get home to clean up and take a nap before going to the 4pm matinee of "Stomp." I opted NOT to take the bus back to the lot where I had parked, so walked the 2 1/4 miles back. It was invigorating, and I felt better for doing that.
I did get a nap in...great! After working at Popejoy till about 6, I invited the Live Nation rep, Joey, to have dinner with Danny and me, so we made a trip up to Fuddrucker's. After dropping Joey back at the theatre, I got ANOTHER nap in, before it was time to head back to the 8pm performance of "Stomp."
That done and out of there by 9:30, Danny and I changed for a night of 2-stepping at the Ranch. When we got there just after 10, the overflow lot was already filling up quickly. Amazing! We spent a nice 2 hours, dancing both 2-stepping and line dances. The DJ has hugely improved on presenting the line dances, and thanks to all my lessons, the floor is ALWAYS full of dancers.
Joey was supposed to meet us after another late dinner with the Stomp company folks down at the Brazilian "Tucanos" downtown. He hadn't showed by midnight, but as soon as we walked out the door to go home, there he was, in a line of 30 or so people WAITING to get into the Ranch. Also amazing...I've never seen a line to get into a bar in ABQ. EVER! Joey may or may not have decided to go in...he doesn't know anybody at the Ranch really, but we were definitely homeward bound for bed.
A good day, all around.
And now I'm relaxing, waiting for Leann to bring back my sound equipment. I need it today, since I'm calling a C1 dance at the house between the matinee and evening performance of Stomp.
In spite of the day's schedule, the being lazy part of this morning feels very like a day off!
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 12:29 am (UTC)I'd be very curious to see if we get any new dancers from this effort in spite of the huge amount of gladhanding the WB did both on the parade route (passing out 2000 cards) and then at the all-day vendor fair on Expo Main Street.
The past two times the WB board wanted to tie in classes with the Pride events, we got NO one, but maybe with the impetus of this largish class we're just crossing over, there will be some goodly word of mouth, too.