Three Cheers for Pride Parades! Looking out from inside the action, with pom-poms
Courtesy of Cheer New York
Cheer New York at the Staten Island Pride Fest, with hostess Carmen Carrera.
BY CHARLES BATTERSBY Everyone loves a parade — but marching in a parade is much more fun than watching one. I perform with a team of LGBT cheerleaders called Cheer New York (cheernewyork.org), and every year the squad marches in New York’s Pride parades. Cheer New York doesn’t cheer for a sports team; we cheer for charity. Most of our time is spent at walkathons, fundraisers for LGBT organizations, and performing on stage at events. But the annual shotgun of parades in June is what it’s all leading up to. Three weeks ago, on the morning of Queens Pride, 40 cheerleaders were taking our first synchronized steps of Pride Month. On June 24, we’ll march across the finish line at Manhattan’s Pride Parade — tired and sunburned, but full of cheer, and proud. Technically, Pride season began a
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month before our first parade, at the Staten Island Pride Fest. It was an outdoor event, and there was a downpour that day. A tent had been set up backstage, and 19 soggy cheerleaders huddled together for two hours as we practiced our choreography out of the audience’s sight. Pride was off to a humbling start for us: a day of wet socks, runny noses, and rain-slicked stages. Despite the rain, there was a still crowd. We maintained our energy, greeted the audience with smiles, and posed for photo ops with toddlers and local politicians. Then we trudged back to the ferry, rain dripping from our pom-poms. The Queens Pride parade was upon us before we knew it, and some of us were still struggling with this year’s new dance routine. We chant the name of
the borough we’re in, then yell, “Show! Us! Your Pride!” before launching into elaborate choreography. It was the fifth event the team did that week, but everyone was taking it particularly seriously. People showed up early, hairstyles were more elaborate, and the girly girls had huge false eyelashes and extravagant makeup. Even the tomboyish girls had bright red lipstick and shimmering highlights on their cheekbones. I wasn’t surprised to catch one of the boys applying mascara. The morning of Queens Pride was cold for June, and we did our warm-up in the middle of the street, stretching on cold concrete. One of our coaches admonished us because we “look cold.” This is his way of telling us that no matter how tired, sore, or cold we are, our joy has to shine through. There are
40 cheerleaders in full uniform in the middle of a residential street, and people have come out of their houses to watch us. It’s a parade, and everyone needs to see that we’re happy to be here. Parades might seem like well-orchestrated operations, but our staging area was changed at the last minute. When it was time to march, we were out of the proper order, and had to rush past other groups. We ran to 37th Ave. and dashed around the corner, smiling, waving, and scrambling into our marching order. It took an hour to march the length of the route, and along the way, there were a few hiccups. I even missed the first couple of steps in the big dance number, slightly out of step as we yelled, “Show! Us! Your Pride!” Queens Pride follows the parade with a daylong festival, and we spent hours NYC Community Media