bjarvis | Survived another DC Pride!

I'm delighted to report that another gay pride weekend in Washington DC has come & gone, and I'm still alive to tell about it.

Our parade is Saturday evening. There was some discussion earlier this week about whether we had enough volunteer square dancers to actually form a square for the parade and thus whether

kent4str and I would need to bring the sound system for impromptu calling. Ultimately, Charles, our pride activities coordinator, decided to risk it and it turned out to be a good call (no pun intended): we ultimately had enough for a square and a few spares besides.

After we transferred the equipment to the DCLS truck near

kent4str's office, we set off to the parade staging area at 24th & M Streets NW. As we set up the equipment, however, we quickly realized we lacked speaker cables. Doh!

cuyahogarvr consulted with the concierge at the nearby Fairmont Hotel for the location of a Radio Shack; while en route, Charles thought to look up Radio Shack on his web-enabled Treo, locate a store and call ahead to confirm it would be open when we got there. $20, 30 minutes and severely elevated blood pressure later, we had our required cables.

The parade itself had a 6:30 PM kick-off but our float was towards the end of the series so I have no idea whatsoever if the starting float did indeed depart on time. As we marched along,

kent4str and I gave our usual spiel, introducing Washington DC's only square dance club, proudly dancing since 1982, open house June 18, come visit our booth, our web site is www.dclambdasquares.org, etc, etc.. When the parade paused, we quickly squared up the dancers and did a few simple figures until the parade began moving on.

Apparently, there was some issue between the DC police and the pride organizers such that the pride committee would be charged whopping large amounts of money for closing certain intersections for the parade route, the duration of the parade and such. I do not know the details, but I do know this was the quickest pride parade I've ever marched in: the number of pausing opportunities in which we could dance & demo were few & far between. Still, I view our pride parade as a public visibility thing rather than a recruitment activity so I'm happy with the results.

Once the equipment was returned to the minivan,

cuyahogarvr,

kent4str and I returned home and soaked in the hottub.

Sunday was a lighter load. The actual festival activities begin around 11 AM and run through to 6 PM or so. We weren't in charge of setting up/shutting down the booth and indeed didn't even sign up for booth coverage this year. DCLS did have a performance slot at 2:40 PM at the Arts Consortium stage; while I would have been happier with 2 squares, we did at least have a demo square and a number of extras who could tag in as needed.

Immediately after being introduced,

kent4str and I shared a singing tip. During a break, we re-introduced our club, pointed out our booth, etc., much along the same vein as yesterday's parade speech. After a second singing tip, we repeated the speech for anyone who just arrived and profusely thanked the Arts Consortium for their generousity and such. After the third and final singing tip, we once again announced our open house, the web site, the location of our booth and urged everyone to drop by at club night or our open house --no dance experience or commitment required.

There were a number of names on the clipboards at our booth when we departed around 3:30 PM so I'm cautiously optimistic that we have more interest than in prior years. Indeed, I think our audience was much larger than the prior two years and experienced less churn --people pushing to the front, realizing it was dancing and immediately running away. Those who were there for our demo stayed the duration.

I'm also happy to say that this was some of our best singing calls to date.

kent4str and I rarely share a stage jointly unless we're teaching a class as we have very different styles and are each pursuing our own calling goals in separate paths: we would both rather be known as individuals than as a Brian & Kent Show. Still, we can blend together nicely when required.

Tonight, we're having burgers in the backyard, followed by large quantities ice cream.

Next week,

kent4str and I are calling noon to 4 PM Sundy in Baltimore for their pride festival. Whee!

	bjarvis and kent4str Just after the DC Lambda Squares demo performance
	DC Lambda Squares dancers, queued up for the parade
	Mmm... beef
	Dick S., an emergency extra dancer
	Steve & Jim
	geomikes & Jim
	kent4str, sfbearhoney and cuyahogarvr