Full of Pride

On Saturday I went with my friend Paul to the Johannesburg Pride Parade. Paul wanted to hand out flyers for our upcoming show, Babes on Broadway, and I wanted to help with that and take photos of the festivities. Mr Ruby Slippers decided to come along too, which was fab, mostly because he kept steering me out of harm's way when I was looking through the camera instead of where I was going :-)

It was SUCH fun! I love bright colours and clearly I had my fill of those! They closed of one of the busiest streets in Johannesburg for us, which left quite a few disgruntled motorists, but for the most part people were waving and cheering and hooting as we went by. I loved it. I loved it so much I didn't even notice we walked six and a half kilometres. This is not normal for me, and I felt like I'd been hit by a bus the next day. It was totally worth it, even though I had to go and dance at rehearsal. Ouch.

PS - apparently neither Mr RS nor myself can put suncream on properly, because we both have a lovely red rim around our hairlines.

Onto pictures!


These rainbow robot guys were AWESOME.


It takes balls to be a fairy..mwahaha.




Look at the little dogs! Awwwwww.




The girls on the left's T-shirts say "The Right to be right here right now", in case it's too small for you to read. And I love how they'd decked out this wheelchair in the middle pic!



These guys in the first three pics were representing a church that accepts everyone. Actually there were three churches there like that, but these guys had the best props! I loved the big crosses and the "Jesus inside" shirts. (To be clear: I don't care for religion particularly, but I do think it's good to be accepting of all people. Basically I just liked their props and things.)

The bottom pic shows us filling up Jan Smuts Avenue. It was such a pleasure not to have to stop at every traffic light as one usually does!


Two of the parade traffic guys, dressing up for the occasion. Loved them!


Bright colours and fairy wings. I was in my element.

Next:

Top left: this van was stopped in the traffic jam we were causing, and the group of guys in front of us had this idea for a photo. I thought it was hysterical!

Middle left: I wanted to take some close-up pics that showed the love and closeness of the participants. I caught this nice casual moment of the one guy tucking his hand through his partner's belt. There are a few more like that scattered through the other storyboards.


My favourites were the crowd reaction shots! These guys were hanging out on their balcony the whole time with a "We heart you" sign:



These construction workers all stopped working to hang over the scaffolding and see the crazy rainbow people:

A general "Um, okaaaay" look from passersby:


These guys were my favourite! Look at the middle guy. You could put his face in the dictionary next to the definition of "What..the...hey...?"

I had the most fun! And, while not wishing to use this blog as a politican platform, I'm so glad gay marriage is legal here. People who love people should be able to marry said people. The end!