Street Theatre > Icons

2004 — Full frontal nudity by these parading wearers of genital jewelry dispel the myth that all men are created equal.

2004 — Hot, muscular bodies clad in jock straps gyrate in celebration of gay locker-room encounters.

2004 — The perennial Dykes on bikes rev their engines and honk their horns in open celebration of lesbian pride to an affirming audience.

2004 — Fashionably attired drag queens lead the way for a transsexual fairy princess who's stitch-marked breasts reveal her surgically-altered anatomy.

2003 — Motorcyclists (many of them female) at the beginning of the Pride Parade are dressed in normative "biker" costume while flying the Rainbow Flag (the Pride Parade banner) instead of recognizable biker gang colors -- thereby appropriating an ur-icon of masculinity.

2003 — Nude marchers of different physical types and characteristics subvert normative conventions of propriety (publicly celebrating full frontal nudity) and of the idealized male body (many of them are overweight, one has suffered a rupture, others wear jewelry on their genitals).

2004 — The majesty of this towering king cobra float captures audience attention through its brilliant use of colour and superb craftsmanship.

2004 — Indians believe that the Firebird originated at the beginning of time: the Firebird was forged from the fires of creation, and has come from another time and space. The front panels are a reflection of the sun and stars, emphasizing the Firebird's celestial origins.

2004 — Ancient Peruvians worshipped nature. They believed that the Old Man of the Sky made the sun, moon, stars and other gods, as interpreted by this spectacular costume.

2003 — The various arts -- music, dance, and painting -- are represented through a variety of colourfully costumed dancers performing to the sound of driving carnival music.

2003 — Carnival inverts roles: everyday people become kings and queens for a day. The body paint of this Carnival King accentuates and celebrates the human form.

2003 — Children participate in Caribana's street theatre: a young boy represents the enchanting aquatic world with his beautiful costume and fluid movements.

2003 — Caribana Queens in ornate float-like costumes, followed by a Native Indian Princess, and a young boy in an elaborate insect costume provide an interesting variety of street spectacle.

World Trade (FTAA) Conference, Quebec City, April 2001
Performance techniques and the mechanics of Protest.

Applying puppet techiniques and poster presentation: street protestors use cut-out figures of riot police juxtaposed against placards which proclaim their right to peaceful assembly and association, to dramatize their claim that "Democracy is a Trojan Horse".

Miss Liberty is presented with torch extinguished. Attached is a large banner presenting planet Earth positioned above a smaller, upside-down U.S. flag, visually aligning the call for equality and fraternity on Miss Liberty's book with global resistance to U.S. hegemony.

Protestors wave blank black flags while wearing scarves/baklava masks over their faces in traditional "guerrilla" style, which identify them with marginalized groups that attempt to subvert U.S. cultural hegemony utilizing methods other than those utilized by the organized cultural mainstream.