Dancing in the SF Pride Parade

Dancing in the SF Pride Parade was not the perfect experience I wanted, but it was the chaos that I needed.

During the pandemic, when I began taking in-person dance classes again for the first time after getting vaccinated, I learned that the company I attended, the ODC, used to host a group every year at the San Francisco Pride Parade. Their last parade was in 2019. That idea always stuck in my head that when they began dancing in the parade again, I would make a point to be there.

On Main Street in the FiDi waiting for our turn to enter the parade

For about a year, I attended their classes every Saturday morning with a friend, and for much of it with a mask on that I would change out half way due to sweat. After my first class dancing around people, I felt like had engaged my body in a way that I hadn’t in years. It was mortifying, but in the fun way where you laugh and also swear to yourself. Many of the students, mostly women, often older than I was, were regulars for years and performed the usual moves with a casual, happy practice that I lacked.

My mood during that first year was dark from losing my dad and spending at least 6 months by myself sheltering in place. Plus I hated that I wasn’t good at dancing anymore. I had been moderately good at dancing when I was younger having done the trifecta of tap, jazz and even ballet, despite having the exact wrong body type and personality for being on dance teams.

But regardless of how many times I messed up in this class, or how long I had to watch our teacher Clara’s feet perform the moves, I always left the class feeling better than when I walked in. Going week after week had the effect of making me feel lighter over all outside of class too. My confidence and sense of play came back. The extra socialization helped melt away some of the agoraphobia I had developed from the pandemic, and learning the moves gave me a sense of purpose outside my cocoon of work that I was lacking.

When, a couple of months ago, I got an email saying the ODC would once again host a group in the SF Pride Parade, I practically leapt out of my seat. With barely a thought as to how I would pull it off, I signed up. It would be my first time in the parade, in any parade since I was 10 years old, and my first Pride as an out, queer woman. Despite some of the protests against the corporate nature of SF Pride, I was all in.

This early commitment turned out to be a good thing because a group of what would be 130 of us had exactly 1 month to learn three dances for the parade. As soon as they posted the training videos, I began practicing every day for at least 30 minutes. The first week was spent mostly watching the training portion of the videos where the choreographer, Dudley Flores, walked us slowly through the steps without music. Then I would blast through a round or two of the full dances to the music with his instruction to see if I could keep up.

We would be dancing with sassy confidence to Beyonce’s “Cozy,” bumping our hips through the drag ball-style, disco song “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” by Sylvester, and slowing our roll (thankfully) to the lyrical “Let’s Love” by Sia and David Guetta.

That first day, as I fumbled through it, I tried to imagine being at the other end of the learning where I knew everything perfectly. As a back-up, I also imagined myself hiding in the middle of the parade pack, covering my mistakes by disappearing into the crowd.

Over the next three weeks, I practiced every day. I struggled to remember the order, so I wrote out cheat sheets on a piece of paper and practiced without Dudley’s voice over. I seemed to be making progress, but had zero idea how I measured up compared to my fellow parade performers.

Finally last Friday, I arrived in San Francisco to the moment of truth: my first in-person rehearsal. I imagined this was when I would know if I did enough work to get me ready for the parade. Much to my delight and surprise, I was nailing it. The moves came easily enough and I had so much fun dancing with the other people. Their energy lifted me up despite my long drive from LA to SF.

Plus, it was the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, so I dedicated my dancing to the people in the riot. A couple times I found tears streaming out the corners of my eyes during the songs.

My dreamy buzz was broken, however, by an announcement towards the end of class: we will try the moves as if we are walking down the parade route - moving forward. Ohhhh yeaaahhhh.

All the moves that we had been practicing in place or back and forth in our apartments would be performed in real life at a pace that rivals competitive speed walking. A fun little mod move that took us around in a circle with a cute step-touch would now also be done while walking backwards and sideways. Sh*t.

The next day, the day before the parade, we performed outside the Yerba Buena Center Gardens to practice the moves going forward and in line. It was super fun to be out in the world dancing and getting some small amount of attention from passers-by, but again the fact that we would be moving forward was a shock to the system. An Amazonian instructor, whose legs extended up to my rib cage, chastised me for not taking a hard enough angle as I performed the step-snap move across the floor. I was falling behind. I tried to quicken my pace, but still found myself lagging behind the majority of people in my row.

Pre-parade chaos, a sign of things to come

The next day when I arrived at Main and Market where we lined up before the route, and my inability to keep up was announced by the same Amazonian instructor who was lining people up at the front of the parade group. I admitted she was not wrong, so with my pride hurt I shuffled myself begrudgingly to the the back of the group. What I would find out is it really didn’t matter because we would rotate every three songs and the people along the parade route respond to vibes and good costumes more than anything else.

It was finally, suddenly, our turn to go. As we turned onto Market Street, it meant we were “on,” performing for the next hour+ for thousands of visitors, photographers, TV crews, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, drag performers who would be awarding prizes to the different parade groups. We were stepping out of the classroom and into battle.

The first surprise was a marching band near the entrance of the parade route that played so loud, it blocked out most of our music for at least a block. I watched with bemused horror as the dancers in front of me, who performed so well yesterday, struggled to find the beat. Being at the back of the group, I tried to piece together our place in the song by mimicking the moves of dancers in front of me, and recalling the tempo from memory. “This is hilarious, one of the dancers next to me said as we pushed our way forward.” It was only on the second and third blocks were we able to recover our sound and regroup.

A few minutes in, from my position on the back left corner, I surveyed the rest of the people in my row and discovered that now I was the fast dancer. I had been making a point to keep pace with the line in front of me, but that meant that most of my row was at least three feet behind me, causing a slow down for the cancer treatment center’s group behind us. This was a challenge I never quite resolved. But the biggest surprise was the terrain.

Despite my years commuting to the Fidi and the Embarcadero I had forgotten that, unlike the smooth carpeted surface of my apartment or the wood dance floor of the classroom, Market Street is famously covered with trolly car tracks, slippery metal grates, and giant bus stops that narrow the lanes. This meant that in addition to all the other challenges, we would have to navigate around these landmines to avoid injury.

Moves I had done the whole month flew out the window as I hop-skipped my way forward through their new iterations, all while trying to acknowledge the crowd and keep a smile on my face. By the mid-parade I was completely off-book, dancing around bus stops, leaping past photographers to avoid elbowing them, and breaking formation to engage with friendly-looking people in the crowd members.

My two seconds of TV time

When I would cast my eye to the other dancers in my row, I could see they were all doing the same- holding on for dear life with laughter in their eyes at the absurdity and joy of being part of something like this.

Dancing in Pride wasn’t the emotional, introspective experience I had expected when I thought about dancing my first time as an out queer woman, but it was exciting. And it taught me a good lesson in humility and flexibility. I was there to give my time to others and celebrate the freedoms of the LGBTQ+ community in San Francisco and advocate for more around the world. It was not the moment for me to try and get approval for how well I was doing. The best performers are ones that give to the audience free of expectation, and the audience can feel that so they give back out of joy, not obligation.

Plus I tend to romanticize too much. Pride started at Stonewall as a riot. Chaos and improvisation feel like the right ingredients for a riot.

Some happenings:

Live tapings of The Side Woo! I’m hosting a few artists talks in the next couple months, so save the date:

Saturday July 6, 3-4:30pm PT — Conversation with Vivien Ebright Chung about her solo show, Verdant Arcadia, at The Trophy Room LA . We will be talking about her work in the show, communing with nature, and the many wonders of the metaphysical world. RSVP and learn more about the event here.

Sunday July 28, 3-4:30pm PT — Conversation with Hayley Barker about her new catalog of paitings, “Altar,” at Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles. This talk is still in the works, but I imagine we will get into the woo of Hayley’s work and talk about our shared love of Bonnard.

Saturday August 24 - Conversation with Iva Gueorguieva at the closing of her show with Night Gallery “Seascapes, Snowscapes, Kukeri.” Details pending but the event will take place in the gallery. Learn more about her show.

NEW! Art Date Social Club - Critique group
I’m starting a queer-centered online critique club, with a potential to go in person, that will take place weekly and be part of a larger membership that includes monthly talks with queer artists, discounted workshops and plein air painting excursions. All Art Date Substack subscribers will have access to the talks, and will be offered a discount to the critique group membership.

Each critique group will have up to 12 people with a minimum 1-month commitment, and present the work of two artists each week. This will be ideal for people looking to get peer review on their work, as well as more in-depth consultation on their longer term project goals.

The main criteria will be a commitment to attending class regularly once they are scheduled and an interest in working as part of a group to offer constructive criticism to fellow artists. LGBTQIA+ identifying and allies are welcome. Fill out the short application here to get started: https://forms.gle/AiHCQyYg1FaYLYhE8 Website in process, more details to follow soon…