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Pride London 2010, Pinkies, GLF

One of the big problems facing Pride nowadays is that there is a tension between those who see the parade and festival as a celebration, those who see it is a marketing ploy and those who want to use it as a platform for social change. I have no problems with celebration, but the chasing of the pink pound really does grate.

Pride to me is about not having to hide who we are, which as this year has shown, is not something you can do is just any country, nor even sometimes in this one. That we have any kind of security at all now is thanks in no small part to the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) which was formed after the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969. The first GLF UK protest march in 1971 became the Pride parade we know of today. The Pink Singers were formed in 1983 to add music to the protest and have been marching and singing at every one ever since. To read what Lou T, Kate N and Philip R have to say about the significance of Pride London and the Pinkies, have a look at the article on the Pinkies' website.

Edit: And as if by psychic magic, Paul Burston writes a wonderful piece on his blog about why Pride London is so important.

Time To Say Goodbye

Phew! What a season it has been. Our first concert at Cadogan Hall, an amazingly supportive audience and so much Pinkie love. Here's a video to tide you over till I catch my breath and write something more substantial.

A Little Light Music - Tonight!

The concert has finally arrived and kicks off at 7.30pm at Cadogan Hall. On-line sales are now shut, but you can still get your ticket by phone (box office phone line 020 7730 4500 message code L305) or you could try your luck on the door.


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In the buildup to the concert, do stay tuned to the Pink Singers' Facebook and Twitter pages as they will be updated all day today. After the concert, keep a watch on the website and our YouTube channel what's happening next. And of course keep your eyes on this page because the Pink Insider will be giving their view on what is going to be our biggest and baddest concert yet!

See you this evening.

Gleeful Show On Saturday!

Whatever you feel about Glee (and my own views are mixed - I find it a bit overwrought dramatically and overengineered vocally) those kids really are very talented. So it was with a tinge of sadness that I watched the last episode of the first season yesterday. The kids from New Directions made it to regionals, performed "Don't Stop Believing" and came in second behind the rather scary Vocal Adrenaline. On the way, they learned that it was not about the winning, it was about the getting there. Indeed.

With the Pink Singers' concert coming up this Saturday (tickets here), it naturally got me thinking about the kind of choir we are. When the Pink Singers first began, judging by the archived photos and videos, we were much more of a "cabaret" choir with shows which focused on soloists with choral backing and occasional choral numbers. There was simple choreography, and we'd put on gigs at the London Lighthouse to raise funds for the AIDS charity.

When Mladen came along, with his classical musical training, the choir changed again, this time focusing on the vocal quality. We became nore of a "proper" choir, with more challenging pieces. As we became more confident from that perspective, however, the chorerography started slipping in again, to the point where we now have a choreography team; the second half of the concert, which has traditionally been lighter entertainment, is almost entirely choreographed or staged.

We're not quite a show choir a la Glee yet though, nor do I think should we be. The main appeal to me of the Pinkies, and to the audience as well I believe, is that we are extremely diverse musically. There aren't that many concerts you can go to where the choir sings both Vivaldi's Gloria and ABBA's Does Your Mother Know. That is exactly what is promised on Saturday. So see you there!

Life Could Be A Dream!

...particularly of you come to the Pink Singers summer 2010 concert extravaganza! Get your tickets here - they're going fast! Here are some photos of us in rehearsal last Sunday to whet your appetite. Album 1 and Album 2.

Flashmobbing Pinkie-style

It is now under a week to the big concert. The choreography is being polished, the final flourishes on the words are being put together, all we need now are bums on seats. That's where you come in! Do make sure you get your ticket for Saturday's performance at Cadogan Hall. And bring a friend or three while you're at it!

We've been doing our own bit to spread the word, and led by the intrepid Jerome some of the Pinkies decided to brave the stares and mobile phone cameras and walk down Old Compton Street singing songs and handing out flyers. Not being that much of a diva I am always slightly self-conscious when it comes to drawing any kind of attention to myself, but once we started doing "our thing" it was clear that the whole event was going to be amazingly fun. Crowds started gathering and we had applause and cheers after every song, and even the odd smile from the scene queens in Rupert Street!

Playing It Straight

If there is one adjective which really annoys me, it is the term "straight-acting". To me it carries so much internalized homophobia and self-loathing that anyone who uses it on themselves immediately creates a negative impression. While I do understand that society sets sexuality up as a straight/gay binary, this is completely presumptious. Just because one does not have a penchant for footy team shirts or walks with a certain swishiness does not make one homosexual.

So it was with a mix of annoyance and curiousness that this weekend the Pink insider watched Playing it Straight on 4oD. For those of you who have not seen it before, it is a twist on the traditional dating programme where one girl is sent on a series of dates to find the man of her dreams amongst a bevy of 10 eligble bachelors. In this particular case the twist is that half of them are gay. If she picks a straight man, they get £50,000 each. If she picks a gay man she gets nothing, while he gets the entire £100,000 prize money.

For a good critique on this programme, and on the whole heteronormative dating show genre, do take a look at this rather marvellous All Business article on the contruction of reality dating show heterosexuality. The Pink Insider was most annoyed that the contest required the gay contestants to "go back into the closet", reinforcing the "otherness" of being gay. Yes, the alleged aim of the show, i.e. the breaking down of stereotypes, was noble, but when the gay chap who eventually won it proudly declared that he was not a poof, a little bit of me died inside. Why does anyone need to expurgate these so-called "feminine" characteristics to feel validated as a gay man?

Anyway, I am glad that the two contestants for whom I was rooting - the charming and well-spoken Alex and the exuberant and comic Jonny - both turned out to be homosexual. It had nothing to do with a gaydar, these two were, for me, the most balanced individuals on the show, who also just happened to be gay.

The Advantages Of Twitter

Courtesy of @brettshane I was presented with this rather lovely photo of rugby players Gareth Thomas and Nick Youngquest today. Gareth Thomas is quite the celebrity at the moment, and has quite unconsciously taken on the role as unoffical spokesperson for LGBT sport. Nick Youngquest is an Australian who is straight, but knows his fan base very well. In any case, I would never have heard of the latter were it not for the wonders of twitter. It turns out that he caused a bit of a furore for the following photo which appeared as the June page of the Naked Rugby League Calendar 2007-2008. The version here is SFW, click on it for a slightly more NSFW version!

Team Pinkies At The Pride Run 2010

Yay! In what has become a bit of a tradition, the Pink Singers are fielding a team for the Pride Run. This is organized by the London Frontrunners, and is always a fun day, with a run in the late morning, a picnic in the afternoon, and a party after that! At the same time we will be raising funds for the London Lesbian & Gay Switchboard, so it really is all good. If you are Pink Singer, join the Facebook group and register now - places go very quickly.

Compulsory World Cup 2010 Post

My interest in the football is, at best, marginal, but once every four years the World Cup swings round and everyone goes into this weird state of soccer fixation. It is almost impossible to not be caught up in the action, particularly when there is so much to ogle at. Annie Leibovitz does a great photoshoot over at Vanity Fair. There's even a 'making of' video over there, but here are a few choice shots. Think I'll be keeping my eye on Brazil and the rather talented Ricardo Izecson Dos Santos Leite (a.k.a. Kaká)...

Naturally, if you are sick to death of football (and if you are, I pity the next month for you...) then may I also suggest a welcome distraction on the Saturday 19th of June? Come to the Pink Singers' concert! Get your tickets here.

Pink Insider Goes Facebook!

I feel a need to explain why the Pink Insider now has a public Facebook page. Until recently there hasn't really been any need for one, but now that Facebook allows a limited amount of coding on their pages (much like MySpace did back in the day) the Pink Insider has decided to take it for a spin. As you can see the blog feed automatically gets posted to the Facebook page, and I am also embedding videos from the Pink Insider YouTube channel onto the page directly too. Everything is a bit of a testbed at the moment. Do check the Facebook page as I try out some cool stuff there. And remember you can still follow the Pink Insider on twitter, by email updates and by RSS.

Sounding Good And Ready To Rumble!

The Pinkies ran through our entire season's repertoire and the concert yesterday. It was the first time we had properly sung through everything, and worked in the choreography and entrances and exits, and the first real chance for us to see how the whole concert comes together. It feels like ages, but it was really just in February that we started putting the pieces together, and even technically challenging pieces like Eric Whitacre's With A Lily In Your Hand are very close to performance standard. We have just two weeks to polish things up a bit, but otherwise, we are in a pretty comfortable position as things go, and will be ready for the summer gig.

Yesterday was also the AGM, an opportunity for the choir to look back on the events of the last year, and vote in the new committee. It is with a great deal of sadness that we lose Mark as our chair. Mark really has been instrumental in taking the choir in new directions. Our choir has benefitted in terms of organizational structure and better planning, and has more people involved in many more ways than ever before. Yesterday's rehearsal reinforced that level of teamwork we all feel. Our new chair is the eminently capable Max who will undoubtedly take us to new heights!

Now and then I have a tiny complaint, and yesterday's was the coffee left behind in the studio after rehearsal. Drinks are VERBOTEN, and more so if you expect someone to clean up after you!

Just Two Weeks To Go!

Do you have your ticket to A Little Light Music yet? If not you'd better get one now - tickets are going, going, gone! The URL is http://www.pinksingers.co.uk/tickets so head on over there now!

Since you are reading this on-line, you probably won't need this, but the Pink Insider has been looking at making real world items "clickable" too. There are basically two different types of patterns you can use for this: Microsoft Tag (above) and QR Codes (below). You may have noticed in the column to your right that these colourful or black and white squares have appeared. Basically, these are bar codes which can be printed out onto real world objects. If you see these patterns around you can actually visit the URL they link to super easily.

All you need is a phone with a camera and a web browser (most phones nowadays), then download the software to read the code (via http://gettag.mobi on your phone for Microsoft Tag, or http://reader.kayway.com on your desktop for QR Codes, or check your device's app store), snap a picture, and you're off!