spotlight: PRIDE orange county
COMING TOGETHER “AS ONE” by tim parks
ORANGE COUNTY PRIDE
range County Pride Week kicks off on Sunday, June 18 with nightly Pride events across Orange County, all leading up to the Pride Parade in Santa Ana onSaturday, June 24. The parade, with its pageantry and spectacle, is followed by the Pride
Festival featuring vendors, dance stages, a family zone and an entertainment lineup we have all come to look forward to over the years. The theme for Orange County Pride is “As One” and is a rally cry of sorts, for
the LGBTQ community to come together in unity. With the state of the world being in such discourse and following the tragedy of last year’s Pulse Nightclub shootings, the theme is a timely one. It also signifies the dichotomy of how being out and proud in Orange County can be a struggle at times, yet it’s a place where the community can stand as one. The Rage Monthly spoke with Orange County Pride’s Director of Marketing
Andy Conner, Director of Programming Jeremy Huntington and Pride Festival headliner Dev to get the lowdown on what it takes to put an event like this on and what revelers can expect at Orange County Pride. The streets of Downtown Santa Ana will become the center of the action. The cityscape will be transformed from its atypical types of hustle and bustle to one of celebration and diversity. To put on a celebration of this magnitude “takes a village” according to Conner. “We start planning for the next year’s Pride as soon as the last Pride is over,” he explained. “The Board of Directors works year-round fundraising and fostering relationships to make O.C. Pride as great as possible.” As for the theme of “As One,” Conner said it was chosen to “Reflect the LGBTQ community’s needs, hopes and reality.” Huntington followed and went on to further explain why it was chosen. “With the current situations going on in the world, we felt our community needed to hear the strength of what Pride is. Being an organization and event that heavily relies on the help and dedication of the entire community at large, ‘As One’ kept coming up during our theme meet- ing. We felt in our hearts it was the core message of Pride; that our community, as one, will survive.” O.C. Pride’s entertainment lineup consists of a few famous RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni and one Billboard chart-topper. First up at 7 p.m. is the season six
Drag Race finalist,Adore Delanowho introduced the term “hog body” to the lexicon of the populace at large. She also competed as Danny Noriega onAmerican Idol in 2008 and will be bringing her vocal chops to the Yost Stage. Delano, who famously volunteered to remove herself from
the competition of RuPaul’s All-Stars Season Two, first honed her drag skills in 2011 after seeing fellow alumni, Raven perform at Micky’s in West Hollywood. After winning a drag competition there, she began performing around Southern California as Adore Delano, choosing her surname because it means, “of the night” in Old French. Following her initial appearance on the popular reality com- petition show, Delano released the debut albumTill Death Do Us Party, which debuted at number three onBillboard’s Dance/Electronic Charts. Another fun fact: She also charted at number 59 on the Billboard 200! That means she’s the highest chartingDrag Race persona, rising above Mama Ru! Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova, aka Katyaof the seventh season of the venerable drag competition, as well as coming in as a finalist in RuPaul’s All-Stars 2, will make her Orange County Pride appearance at 7:30 p.m. The comedy
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RAGE monthly | JUNE 2017
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