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Other Out Travel StoriesToronto shows its PrideBy Matthew HaysRock out to over 650 artists appearing alongside the Indigo Girls during this year's Pride Week.
When Toronto’s Pride celebrations take place this June, the event will be marking much more than its 27th birthday. After all, Canada’s largest metropolis has played host to Pride, which has morphed from a small but feisty civil rights march to an epic 10 days of parties, literary readings, concerts and art exhibits. This event, one of the biggest Pride festivals in North America, is now an essential stopover for all kinds of tourists: a major destination point for fun, free spirits and equality, due in part to Canada’s record of breakthroughs for legal rights for its gay citizens.
Toronto's gay village is a lively hub of shops, bars, clubs and parks that unite the local merchants with residents in a part of Toronto that reflects the diversity of the city's LGBT community. High-rise co-ops sit next to three-story, Victorian-style walk-up flats. During Pride Week, certain streets are set aside to accommodate the heavy pedestrian traffic; in other words, the neighborhood is primed for one gigantic street party. Hit the street fair on Saturday and Sunday for hipster home accessories and local artisanal crafts or to just kick back in the beer garden.
Indigo Girls take it outside This year’s Pride Week theme is “unstoppable,” and Pride Toronto has managed to secure a bevy of A-list talent to headline its festival of fun. Among those appearing will be the Indigo Girls, with organizers sensibly predicting that these fabulous American musicians, who have married their art to their activism, will prove a popular draw. The lesbian folk rock duo, made up of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, has championed numerous causes from LGBT rights to the rights of aboriginal people while creating some brilliant albums, among them Retrospective and Become You. The Indigo Girls will be appearing on an outdoor stage Saturday, June 23, and admission is free.
Also appearing at Pride is Cyndi Lauper, who is headlining the True Colors concert on June 19. Lauper has repeatedly spoken of her lesbian sister in interviews, a personal connection that has made her feel passionate about the issue of rights for the LGBT community. And as anyone knows who has seen Lauper live, she is also a consummate performer – hugely entertaining with a superb voice.
Blondes have more fun Another key performer in the True Colors lineup is Debbie Harry, the iconic pop star and front woman for the group Blondie, who has a strong connection to Toronto. In 1983, Harry appeared in the cult sci-fi movie Videodrome, directed by Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg. Proceeds from the True Colors event will be given to Pride Toronto, and tickets are available through Ticketmaster.
Pride Toronto has determined that no pride festivity is quite right without the inclusion of a disco diva. Martha Wash, the woman who was one half of the 1980s singing troupe the Weather Girls, will be belting out several sets at a free outdoor concert, singing her signature crowd pleaser It’s Raining Men. Accenting all of this talent will be numerous opportunities to take in Toronto’s cultural life with additional guests, including extraordinary stand-up act Margaret Cho, former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray, author Irshad Manji, Olympic gold medal winner Mark Tewksbury, playwright Sky Gilbert, author Matthew Fox and poet Zoe Whittall.
Getting here Toronto’s Pride Week, 416-927-7433, pridetoronto.com Matthew Hays is a Montréal-based journalist whose work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Guardian and The Advocate. |
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