Mardi Gras Fab Parade
February 28, 2010 by Sheila Whittaker
All that is fabulous was on parade at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
The parade route was warmed up by the Dykes on Bikes, a lesbian motorcycle group that encourages its members to “ride with pride.” There was plenty of honking, whistles, lights and leather. After they roared through, there was a fairly long intermission before the parade began.
The parade was kicked off with two dancing boys (pictured here) in a cage not unlike a the wheely luggage rack that a bellhop uses to deliver your bags to your hotel room. I wonder what kind of tip these two would fetch?
All sorts of groups were out to show their support for the gay and lesbian community. There were enforcement types: the navy (naturally), and karaoke-singing cops belting out “I Will Survive.” There were emergency and health officials including nurses, firefighters and lifesavers in Baywatch-esque swim gear doing a choreographed line-dance down the streets.
Community groups were also out. Teachers carried placards demanding equity in schools. There were equal rights lobbyists and the Femme Guild of Sydney danced to Dolly Parton’s “9 To 5″ dressed as Rosie the Riveter or other such takes on J. Howard Miller’s “We Can Do It” character. There were sports groups including a rugby and water polo team in the line up. A ‘rainbow bus’ chugged along on behalf of state transit.
There were jolly, gay Jews and a somber group of Christians holding signs that read “sorry, we were wrong.” Queer Atheists also made an appearance. A groovin’ group of dancing ladies in head dresses also made way for a convertible with a caricature of Osama bin Laden singing into a penis-microphone under a banner that read “Osama is coming out and putting the ‘fun’ back into ‘fundamentalism’!
One of Australia’s major banks, AMP, had a troupe of dancers well-dressed in silver and matching mirrored helmets, mimicking disco balls. Their group line dance was also one of the stronger ones on the route. A float for George Michael, who performed in Sydney earlier in the week, blasted out his greatest hits, while at least three colour-coded teams of 50 dancers trailed the float with a line dance. Another winner of a group dance troupe followed the float that read “Four Queens beats a Straight.” There were four Queens waving from the flat-bed float and the trailing dancers wore shirts with either a club, spade, diamond or heart on the front.
The Sydney Homotones, a community band, played from the flatbed of a truck. A group of kilted Scots came all the way from “AberQueen,” according to their signs, and were ready to show spectators the “Cock Ness Monster.” Representatives from San Fransisco Leather Week made sure that the gear, fetish and kink factor was taken care of. Thank goodness, because I would not have found my Mardi Gras experience to be complete without having viewed men in ass-less leather chaps whipping each other.
I was considerably under-dressed for the occasion, but a topless fellow with black wings strapped to his back was kind enough to offer me some gold glitter. A group of onlookers in front of us were well-prepared with sparklers to wave on the parading groups. And to our left there was a group armed with bubble wands and they kept a nice canopy of bubbles floating over our section.
More photos are available on flickr.
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Love it! What a show that must have been! I am so impressed with your travel writing skills my dear, I totally bailed on my Monaco blog and now wish I hadn’t!