Fridae

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is a three-week long festival of gay and lesbian culture, arts, sport and debate.

Held in Sydney during February, it culminates in a much talked about Parade. Half a million people pack the streets to be a part of the annual event, with many more viewing it on their telly screens at home.

Extravagant, energetic, exciting, electric and eccentric, the Sydney Mardi Gras parade has always been one that cannot be described as minimal or subtle. The lights, the floats, the contingents - one unforgettable parade, every one hailed as a classic. The flamboyant annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has grown to become one of the biggest Gay and Lesbian celebrations in the world.

From its beginnings as a protest march in 1978, the Parade has exploded cultural and political boundaries, created history and changed millions of lives along the way.

Acceptance from the general community has risen considerably since the early years, and nowadays, tens of thousands of straight revellers also flock to the festival to watch the spectacle.

And Sydney's Mardi Gras Parade has had one memorable addition: the Asian Marching Boys contingent. Since 1999, these boys have not only made themselves a household name, they have, through their entries in the parade, become a political and cultural voice in the predominantly Anglo-Saxon mainstream gay and lesbian community in Australia.

With minimalist costumes and float, 1999 marked the debut of forty feisty and energetic young men in the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade. Armed with only their skimpy thongs and black leather boots, the boys took the crowd by storm, becoming one of the most talked about entries that year.

The group strives to promote the visibility of Asian gay men in Australia, to advocate an active participation of Asian gay men in the mainstream gay and lesbian political and cultural and social activities.

In doing so, also help to encourage them to take a more pro-active role in their search for their cultural, sexual and political identity. Above all, the group aims to be a social support network for Asian gay men in Australia.

Sydney has always had a large Asian gay population who come into close contact with the rest of the Australian gay population, but the emotional and health needs (among other needs) of this group of men have often been neglected or unattended to.

The Asian gay population has often been marginalised, isolated and discriminated against by the mainstream community, the Asian community and even the local gay community.

Discrimination and racism, however, is often a result of bias-ness, negative stereotypes and portrayals of Asian gay men by the media and the gay community alike.

Many gay men of Anglo-Celtic backgrounds, for example, still regard Asian men to be stereotypically passive, feminine or easy, thus attracting only the older Caucasian men. Because of this, many Asian gay men find it difficult to fit in or feel comfortable as part of the local gay community.

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Asian Marching Boys' participation in the 1999 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was the first attempt by the Asian gay community to bring together Asian gay men of all backgrounds in the New South Wales region, to promote visibility and a more positive image (sensual and masculine, not the typical feminine images often portrayed) of Asian gay men.

Their 2001 Mardi Gras Parade entry was themed "Decriminalisation of Homosexuality in Asia". It featured the prosecution of Anwar Ibrahim for alleged sodomy charges, and certainly raised more than a few eyebrows with a float that had 'Anwar' in a cell followed by fifty marching boys.

Attracting enormous media attention, they had an unsurpassed level of media coverage by the Australian Channel 10 and other cable channels. And just for your information, they won the Best Choreographed Group Entrant award that year. The uniqueness of this entry was a positive step towards a better understanding and acceptance of Asian gay men and their place in the Sydney gay and lesbian community.

Committed to the liberalisation of gays and lesbians in Asian countries, this is just one of the ways the group aims to transmit the political message of inadequate protection of human rights in such countries.

Besides Mardi Gras Parades, the Asian Marching Boys are also involved in other community support projects such as performing at the 2001 HIV/AIDS conference, and the Anti-Violence project that addresses issues related to gay bashing targeting Asian gay men.

The group was founded by Dr Mohamed Mahat who besides possessing a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Queensland, was a performer with the Dance department of the University of Wisconsin (Madison) USA, and Alexander Ku, the coordinator of Asian Project and Silk Road (a gay Asian support group which is a permanent fixture of ACON - AIDS Council of NSW).

Besides being involved in the above, Ku has a BA in Dance-Theatre, a Bachelor of Social Science in Child Psychology, a Graduate Diploma in Education and an MA in Performance Studies.

His theatre works address issues of gender, politics and spirituality as examined against his multicultural heritage (Japanese, Chinese and Australian). Many of his works have been shown in the Festival of Perth, Artrage Festival, Play House Theatre and SBS-TV.

Fei Lee handles their choreography and costume design. He graduated with Bachelor of Arts in Dance from the Victorian College of the Arts and dances professionally with Australian dance companies. He has experience in designing sets and costumes for various productions of contemporary dance companies.

Music Engineer Yuriy Yankovsky graduated from the renowned Russian Academy of Music. He specialised in teaching music and singing, as well as being a variety and jazz singer and soloist. Yankovsky has been a singer, pianist, lounge entertainer and producer of shows all over the world, from Russia to Britain to Australia.

With all this talent (and all those gorgeous Asian boys), make sure you catch the Asian Marching Boys this year as they strut their stuff with the rest of the participants of Sydney's Mardi Gras 2002 parade.