Pride weekend is coming up, and Buffalo’s LGBTQIA+ community is getting ready to demonstrate what being prideful is all about. While most people are familiar with the big Pride Parade, there is an offshoot event called Dyke March – founded in 2001. This year, the Dyke March, gets underway with plenty of community building workshops, and then a whole lot of marching and colorful hoopla.
Festivities will get underway on Saturday, June 4, 2016 starting at noon at Bidwell Parkway. The actual march will line up at 4pm at the corner of Grant and Potomac, before getting underway at 5pm. Marchers will end up back at Bidwell Parkway where the celebration began. Festivities will ensue, including live music, spoken word, belly dancers, and burlesque.
Be sure to attend the drumming workshop with local percussionist Tiffany Nicely at Bidwell Parkway earlier in the day. After the parade wraps up, there will be family-friendly activities in which to partake. Activities will include face painting, hula hooping by Ultra Hoops, and hoop instruction for all ages, sizes and abilities.
Following are the goals that have been set by organizers of the Dyke March:
- To create a Dyke March that is celebratory, inclusive, and rooted in social justice
- To maintain and sustain our own critical dyke voice within Pride Buffalo events
- To build relationships with diverse dyke communities that are often overlooked and marginalized, and reflect the activist roots of Buffalo’s Dyke March
- To build strategies/tools that help community members support each other and sustain a sense of belonging and community
- To create an experience through organizing for and participating in Dyke March activities that is rewarding and meaningful
To learn more about the march, visit this website. Also stay tuned to this Facebook event.