Darlinghurst Blog: Art and Culture: Blinged Out Fabulous by Ron Muncaster and Craig Craig

If you're attending Saturday night's Mardi Gras Parade and looking for some inspiration, you must go and see the show of the year at the Tap Gallery on the corner of Palmer and Liverpool streets.

The upstairs gallery, entered from Palmer Street, is featuring until Sunday an incredible show of museum-quality costumes by legendary Darlinghurst designer Ron Muncaster, alongside artworks inspired by his designs - and using off-cuts from the fabrics - by his partner of 15 years, Craig Craig.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but when I walked upstairs I was struck by a room filled with creativity and daring designs.

The costumes date back to the early 1980s and featured in Mardi Gras Parades throughout the years. The inspiration is incredible. Muncaster is a true creative dreaming up over-the-top concoctions that are shiny, sequined and could only be worn in the Mardi Gras Parade. 

Meanwhile, Craig's works almost act as inspiration boards, dissecting all the pieces and fabrics that have gone into creating these extravagant costumes.

Can you imagine someone sauntering down Oxford Street in this sapphire gown:

I would love to wear a costume like the one below where my identity could be kept secret as I danced down the parade route (only because I'm quite shy):

Alongside one of the costumes is a photograph showing Ron in the parade wearing the large skirt and headdress (which was apparently stolen) and it really brings the idea of Mardi Gras to life: a celebration of sexuality, individuality and acceptance.

As Craig explains in the exhibition flier: "Early on, I could see that our acceptance in the wider community was going to be by our exposure in media, television and on the streets and Ron was part of that evolution that I could support." 

Happy Mardi Gras everyone. I hope it doesn't rain on Saturday night.

*

Blinged Out Fabulous

By Ron Muncaster and Craig Craig

Upstairs at the Tap Gallery

278 Palmer Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Until Sunday 2 March 2013

www.tapgallery.org.au

Darlinghurst Blog: Art and Culture: Sydney Mardi Gras Museum

The festive season has only just ended but the party season has already begun in Darlinghurst, following the launch last Friday of the Sydney Mardi Gras Festival when the rainbow flag was raised above Sydney Town Hall. 

This year the festival is marking its 35th anniversary with the 'Generations of Love' theme, a packed program of events and a temporary Sydney Mardi Gras Museum on Oxford Street, which has been a long-time coming.

The museum has some great window displays styled like a drag queen's dressing room, with shiny costumes, feather boas and mirrors. 

And I finally had a moment to pop in last night and take a look.

Inside, the museum is laid out chronologically and includes some fantastic archival photographs, memorabilia including posters and artwork, and a rainbow-coloured Ron Muncaster costume in the centre of the room.

I'm a big fan of Mr Muncaster for his daring and creative costumes, which in the early years of Mardi Gras helped set its festive and flamboyant tone. 

Mr Muncaster lives just down the road on Crown Street and I have had the honour of being invited to peruse his massive archives of costumes that fill the spare rooms in his large terrace house. 

He also loaned me one once when I had to go to a costume party and I may even be putting it on again soon to attend the launch of his new joint exhibition, with his partner Craig Craig, at the TAP Gallery next week.

That may be another story. But back to the museum.

The exhibition traces the roots of Sydney Mardi Gras, which began as a march down Oxford Street for international gay solidarity in 1978. The museum includes the original request from a group in San Francisco who asked for Sydneysiders to show their support for equality. 

That first march involved more than 500 people and resulted in 53 people being arrested when the march was broken up by police. The museum photograph above shows the police response to the march at Taylor Square in 1978.

That same view today shows just how much things have changed in the past 35 years with the same street now lined with Mardi Gras banners and rainbow flags. And since then the parade has grown to become more of a celebration of our diverse sexuality.

One of the highlights of the museum are the original artworks and photographs, which illustrate how a simple drawing of a rosella . . .

. . . is the inspiration for a marvellous costume:

It's all these great artifacts, like the Dykes on Bikes badges below, that really personalise the museum and bring the exhibition to life. 

While this is only a temporary museum, hopefully next year Sydney Mardi Gras will be able to open the doors to a permanent exhibition and museum space that can attract people all year round.

TONIGHT the museum is hosting a talk by photographer and Mardi Gras chronicler William Yang, who will be discussing the 1980s.

The guest speaker series continues on Monday 18 February with a talk by photographer C. Moore Hardy and on Tuesday 19 February with a discussion by Ron Muncaster on the 90s. 

Tickets cost $35 plus booking fee and can be purchased from the Sydney Mardi Gras website.

The museum is open daily throughout the festival and is a must-see for all Sydneysiders. 

*

Sydney Mardi Gras Museum

Corner of Oxford and Palmer streets

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

www.sydneymardigras.org.au

Darlinghurst: Detritus: Mardis Gras 2011 Photographs

Darlinghurst was buzzing on Saturday night with thousands of Mardis Gras revellers dressed in amazing costumes wandering the streets and streaming out of Kings Cross station all making a bee-line for the parade on Oxford Street. 

There has been much debate on news sites and blogs about whether Mardis Gras is still relevant. To the nay-sayers, I say, you're boring: if you don't like it, no one is making you go along. And to the people who moan, ''It was better in the 80s, these days it is just embarrassing'', you sound like whinging, old fogies carrying on about the past. Why not just let people enjoy themselves.

It's 2011 and the 33-year-old parade still manages to attract thousands of people to march and participate in the floats. Even more watched from the sidelines and from what I can gather they all had a marvellous time celebrating life and love, including this happy golden, young man.

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the parade this year but I was lucky enough to stumble on this great scene with golden man at the junction of College, William and Park streets, outside the Australian Museum:

They must have been participants in the last float of the parade.  Most of them had taken so much care with their make-up and costumes and the end result was mind-blowing.

I really don't know how this man managed to balance this massive jewelled and feathered head-dress on his head:

But then I came across this outlandish costume, with the most beautiful fabric and bead detail in the head-dress:

I love how these feathered friends were having a little gossip as if they just gad about in costumes like this all the time:

These three girls had hired fancy-dress costumes and caught the train down from Newcastle, north of Sydney, to watch the parade:

There were about 1000 extra police on the streets to make sure none of the revellers got out of hand. NSW Police did an excellent job this year, using Twitter and Facebook to provide regular traffic updates and public transport announcements so that everything ran smoothly. Only 18 people were arrested. Considering the large crowd, this was an excellent result. And the police that I saw appeared to be enjoying all the great costumes and seemed to be in really good spirits. 

After the parade was over, the streets were littered with alcohol bottles, rubbish and plastic stools, which some enterprising people had been selling to revellers for a tidy profit.

But by Sunday morning, the only signs of the night before were a few stray sequins, feathers and empty booze bottles. 

Darlinghurst: Detritus: Mardis Gras 2011

This Saturday Oxford Street in Darlinghurst will be closed to traffic to make way for the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardis Gras parade, now in its 33rd year.

The 16-day Mardis Gras festival launched on February 19 and there have been daily events and performances since then, including Fair Day at Victoria Park at inner-city Glebe, the Lifesavers with Pride beach BBQ and carnival at Tamarama Beach and the Mardis Gras Film Festival. 

United States author Armistead Maupin, who wrote the excellent and addictive Tales of the City series about San Francisco's gay community in the 1970s and 80s, is also giving a reading and being interviewed at a literary event TONIGHT at the Sydney Opera House. Tickets cost between $39 and $59, plus booking fee and you can purchase them here.

Darlinghurst has been abuzz with Mardis Gras fever since the festival was launched. There are loads of gay tourists on the streets taking photographs and holding maps, while there are dozens of posters plastered up around the neighbourhood advertising special Mardis Gras offers and events. 

The first Sydney Mardis Gras was held on Saturday June 24, 1978, as part of international Gay Solidarity Celebrations to promote gay and lesbian rights. You would think we have come a long way since then, but gay and lesbian people still have to fight to gain equality and acceptance in the community. Even in Darlinghurst. 

Peter Madden is the Christian Democrat Party's candidate for the Seat of Sydney in the state election on March 26. Mr Madden - perhaps unsurprisingly given the party's long stance against gay people - is running on a platform that includes putting an end to the Sydney Mardis Gras parade. Madden claims the festival is ''sexually immoral'' and believes the parade is an opportunity for gay and lesbian people to ''recruit'' young people.

Okay, he is completely mad, but I still can't believe people believe this shit in 2011. 

Mr Madden aside, gay and lesbian couples in Australia are still fighting for the right to be legally wed, with many being forced to travel overseas to the United States or Canada, where it is legal, just to get married. 

There was an interesting Crikey article this week, by Tom Cowie, about whether Mardis Gras is still relevant and it's worth reading just for the comments by readers. 

The parade begins at Hyde Park and travels up Oxford Street and then along Flinders Street to Moore Park for the Post Parade Party at the Royal Hall of Industries. The parade consists of over 100 colourful floats surrounded by dancers. Most of the floats have a political or comic theme and some regulars include Dykes on Bikes, Tits on Trucks and Muscle Marys.

I was going to write a potted history about the parade but the Sydney Mardis Gras website has that covered, so instead I will just pull out some interesting little facts and curios about the event, for which this year's theme is Say Something. 

About 1500 people attended the first Mardis Gras parade. They met at Taylor Square and then marched behind a truck equipped with a sound system down Oxford Street to Hyde Park. They were harassed by police officers along the way because holding such a demonstration was illegal. Many revellers ran up William Street to Darlinghurst Road to escape the police, but instead were met by a road block where officers swooped and arrested 53 people, who were allegedly beaten in the cells.  

It wasn't a good start but it paved the way for legislative change in 1979 when NSW Parliament created a new Public Assemblies Act that allowed people to apply for a permit to hold such a large demonstration.

In 1979, 3000 people marched in the parade. 

In 2009, 10,000 people marched in the parade.

About 500,000 people turned out to watch the parade in 1993.

At the height of the AIDS scare in 1985, the parade was nearly cancelled when the head of Australia's AIDS Task Force controversially appealed to ''the gays to be responsible enough to cancel the Mardis Gras activities''. The parade went ahead but organisers of the Post Parade Party had to pay double for the venue hire to placate the owner.

The Mardis Gras parade was first broadcast on television in 1994 in a 50-minutes highlights special on the ABC. In 1997 the event was broadcast by commercial channel, Network Ten, and this year it will be screened live on pay-TV channel Arena, from 7.30pm.

About 2 million birds worldwide are plucked to provide enough feathers for the Sydney Mardis Gras. 

Sequin factories in China have to work overtime for three months to supply an estimated 20 million spangly sequins for the event.

The Mardis Gras festival attracts thousand of international and interstate visitors, generating an estimated $39 million in tourist dollars for the NSW economy.

Boy George, The Village People, Chaka Khan, Jimmy Barnes, Kylie Minogue, Danni Minogue, George Michael and Cyndi Lauper are just some of the musicians that have performed at the Mardis Gras's Post Parade Party, which attracts up to 20,000 people.

This year the Mardis Gras Party is being held at the Royal Hall of Industries and the Hordern Pavilion at the Entertainment Quarter at Moore Park, but the big act has yet to be announced. 

Darlinghurst's Stonewall Hotel at 175 Oxford Street is named after the original Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village. The Stonewall Inn was owned by the mafia during the 1950s and 60s and was a popular place for the city's most marginalised residents, including gay and lesbian people. 

On June 28, 1969 the inn was raided by police, who regularly targeted gay bars, and a riot ensued. 

The tensions between the police and gay and lesbian citizens intensified over the following weeks leading to the establishment of resident activist groups that campaigned for equal rights and organised venues where gay and lesbian people could socialise without fear of being arrested.

There are NO car spaces in Darlinghurst on Mardis Gras night, so leave your vehicle at home if you are coming in to the neighbourhood. Just for fun, why not catch the 311 Bus?

P.S. I made up those statistics about the feather and sequins.

*

www.mardisgras.org.au