Photos by Seth Temple Andrews

Our call for collaborators for the SF Pride parade brought together a group of burlesque queens, academics, sex workers, dancers, performance artists, students, friends, environmental activists, and anyone else who wanted to join us. In all, 120 people signed up. We needed a director to wrangle and direct our cast. So we consulted with artist/poet Guillermo Gómez-Peña, who suggested we hire his La Pocha Nostra co-director, Saúl García-López aka La Saula. Saúl was a masterful and creative director who took the work seriously. The parade shoot became a fruitful collaboration between our people and La Pocha Nostra troupe—overseen by Guillermo. Becka Shertzer, of Brazen Nectar Catering, had a lot of friends in the food biz and arranged for thousands of dollars’ worth of donated food and drinks to be available for our whole team. Among many others, Amy’s gave us a few weeks’ worth of frozen burritos and pizzas, Pepples Donut Farm sent dozens of divine vegan fresh donuts, and GT’s Kombucha gave us fifty cases of rainbow kombucha to hand out at the parade. 

Our parade contingent was included as a Queer Cultural Center (QCC) performance in the annual International Queer Arts Festival. We asked that participants dress in the colors and themes of Water. The Center for Sex and Culture was our nonprofit umbrella sponsor, so Carol Queen, Robert Lawrence, and the CSC librarians, looking fabulous, marched along with us carrying their banner.

We broke into affinity groups: the green gnomes led by Kaytea Petro, the sexecologists wearing white lab coats with the word sexecologist spray-painted across the back, and the Pollination Podpushers wearing punk rock–style lingerie. Our favorite eco-burlesque queen, Lady Monster, was costumed as a sexy Earth. Puppeteers danced inside a forty-foot-long steelhead salmon puppet crafted by puppet master Heidi Cremer. Hannah Honeyheart Reiter marched in her belly dancer best. An eco-core drum squad, the Traveling Ills, called out Water-themed chants. Our contingent marched holding ecosexy Water-themed protest-style signs

On the morning of the big event, we hauled the Pollination Pod to the designated staging spot at the corner of Main and Market Streets. Beth outfitted the pod with four boat oars so that it could be human powered and pushed down the street. The Pollination Pod would be our sparkling, campy, Water drop effigy. The parade was way behind schedule, so,our press agent Kate Fritz serenaded us with bluegrass music. Daniel Nicoletta (who took the Harvey Milk photo that’s on the U.S. postage stamp) took great photos of our contingent. Our neighborhood shaman, Jorge Molina, performed a water ritual. Right before it was time to march, Guillermo, performed our new, co-written, streamlined, more poetic Ecosex Manifesto 2.0, which we felt helped counter the corporate commercialization of the Pride Parade.

Two of Beth’s students energetically led us down Market Street, carrying our fifteen-foot banner that read “Here Come the Ecosexuals!” We followed as the ecosexual pride flag bearers, with our flag poles inserted into crotch-level, black leather strap-on holsters. Flanking us were Paul Corbit Brown (the environmentalist interviewed in Goodbye Gauley Mountain) and Amanda Starbuck (an environmental activist who has been a leader within groups like Greenpeace.). We gave them a big wooden letter E to carry. Guillermo came next, escorted by two sexy Phantom Mariachis, played by his wife, Balitronica, and friend Jadelynn Stahl in zentai suits, sequined sombreros, and very high heels. Zen Cohen followed as an H2O police officer, interrogating people if they had wasted water. The Pollination Pod was in the center, and then came the sexecologists dancing with water-filled condoms and the giant salmon puppet and gnomes.

We flowed like water along the seemingly never-ending parade route. A million people watched this San Francisco Pride Parade, which was our largest performance audience to date.

Click here to see lots more info about this production, the cast, crew, and our generous sponsors. 

Photos by Priscilla Bertucci

Photos by Daniel Nicoletta

A CALL FOR COLLABORATORS!

We are seeking volunteer performers, marchers, banner carriers, flag bearers, safety monitors, make-up artists, a costume stylist, a hair stylist, makers, ecosex educators and production assistants.

PRE-PRODUCTION MEETINGS & A DRESS REHEARSAL and GROUP PHOTO

Where: At E.A.R.T.H. Lab Center, Studio 229, in the Digital Arts Research Center (DARC) Building,at UCSC, 2^nd floor. Corner studio.
When: Tuesday, May 19, 5:00pm – 6:30pm: Pre-Production Gathering at UCSC’s E.A.R.T.H. Lab Center.
Tuesday, May 26, 5:00pm – 6:30pm: Pre-Production Gathering at UCSC’s E.A.R.T.H. Lab Center.
Tuesday, June 2, 2:00pm – 5:00pm: Pre-Production Gathering at UCSC’s E.A.R.T.H. Lab Center.
Thursday, June 4, 2:00pm – 5:00pm: Pre-Production Gathering at UCSC’s E.A.R.T.H. Lab Center.
Saturday, June 6, 11:00am – 2:00pm: Dress Rehearsal and group photo at UCSC’s E.A.R.T.H. Lab Center.

PARADE AND PICNIC

Where: Parade takes off at Pacific Ave & Church Street, downtown Santa Cruz. Picnic will take part in the parking lot at Cathcart Street and Cedar Street.
When: June 7th, 2015
9:00am CHECK IN–Vehicle and production team
10:00am CHECK IN– Walking participants and performers
10:20am Our contingent to be fully assembled
10:30 RIBBON CUTTING, WATER TOAST CEREMONY & SHORT PERFORMANCES
11:00 PARADE BEGINS
POLLINATION POD POST PARADE  PICNIC & AN ECOSEX EDUCATION CLINIC
Free snacks and kombucha—We’ll set up at Cathcart Street and Cedar Street downtown Santa Cruz.

THE CONTINGENT FORMATION (SUBJECT TO CHANGE.)

1. Two banner carriers lead with a 6’ “Here Come the Ecosexuals!” banner.
   B. Two flag bearerscarry our ecosex pride flags. (Created by artist Cindy Baker)
   C.Our core performance troupe of about 25 performers does a simple choreographed sound and movement piece. 
   (Requires a dress rehearsal Saturday, June 6, 11-2)
   Music and performance by The Traveling Ills.
   D. Our float is our glittery blue Pollination Pod water droplet camper – human powered by 6-8 people.
   E. A group of 30+ ‘ecosexuals’ flank the rear walking in costume, carrying various signs and props. (Wear an ‘ecosexy costume’ of any kind. No rehearsal needed.)
   F. Five volunteer safety monitors march along side the contingent. This is a great role for those who want to participate but don’t like performing. (The parade requires that we must have these in order to be in the parade. Requires a one-hour training session. See perks below.)
   G. The “Rainbow on Wheels” by Jason Lavoy and Jamie Epstein

WHAT TO WEAR (Suggested)

1. Core performance troupe, flag bearers, banner carriers:
   We request you wear black (Ie: punk/goth/SM/Kink/tux/formal/ecosexy/slutty/ other) with blue and white costume bits with water references (snorkel, belly board, merman, wet suits, fish tail, waves, sea horse, swimmer, hot tubber…).
   B. Chorus:
   We suggest you dress ecosexy, formal, casual, sculptural, or as you wish. Think boy/girl scout, hiker, a tree, human-carrot, whale, furry, pony, sea whore-se, beach bunny, diver,…), but you are also free to dress how you want. Black costumes are a plus.

WHO:

Contingent Sponsor: UCSC’S E.A.R.T.H. LAB CENTER
Producers & lead artists: Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens
Production & Performers: Pale Breast and Kelsey Moody
Eco-Burlesque: Honey B. Dazzle
Contingent Guardian Angel: Sandy Stone
Others Artists: To be announced.
Production team:
Seth Andrews – Photography
Kayla Kemper – Photography/Production
Athena Angle – Mermaid/Dance/Performance
Iztla Dominguez – Posters/Printing
Nicola Moore – Dance
Maria Ramirez – Performance/Dance
Casssandra Cronin – Music/Performance
Jared Frazier – Music/Logistics/Building/Repair
Hannah Reiter – Production
Jamie “Wonderpig” Epstein – Sign up for table and rainbow

Costumes/Props: SARAH STOLAR

WE’RE MAKING A MOVIE!

The contingent performance will be filmed for our new documentary about water. (Water Makes Us Wet.)
Film Crew:Isabelle Carlier, Malinda O’Brien
Photography: Seth Andrews

WHAT YOU GET

It’s all a big juicy labor of love, so unfortunately these are all unpaid volunteer positions. However, there will be perks, great networking opportunities, lots of fun, film cameos, and you can do something nice for the Earth and for water. Funding we received is going into the filming, parade fees, costumes and props, press, etc. We can also offer a potluck party event for the people in the troupe and our monitors. You will also receive our huge gratitude. Thanks.

FOOD AND DRINK DONATIONS

Frontier Snacks, GT’s Kombucha, Dove Distributors, Sprogs, Pepples Organic Donuts, Rainbow Grocery, Amy’s Kitchen, OMG!, Lev’s Originial Kombucha, Trade Supplies.

GRANTORS

This project is supported with funds from the San Francisco Arts Commission, the UC Arts Research Institute, UC Santa Cruz E.A.R.T.H. Lab, UCIRA, UCSC Committee on Research, and the Rydell Foundation.