THE RAINBOW PARADE // MAY 2020 Digital project
“In a time when we are missing parades, processions, carnivals and festivals from our city streets, town squares and fields around the world, I wonder if there is a way we can participate in a parade another way? Could we dress up, make banners, express ourselves and be part of something together via our phones and laptops and living rooms?
— Nikki Shaill, Originary Arts, April 2020”
A DIGITAL PARADE
Whilst we may not be able to take to the streets this May Day, Originary Arts invited anyone who wanted to be part of an online parade to submit a 5 to 10 second video clip of themselves, dressed in one colour, during April 2020. The Rainbow Parade was the resulting creative project that came out as a response to Covid 19. Our first film project. Watch over 85 participants parading across your screen, in different colour blocks from red to gold! A participatory arts project responding to the challenges that Covid-19 poses for us, celebrating colour, joy, connection and hope.
From joining the Red Rebels colour black to the Yellow Fellows, or the Black Bloco at the Back, people of all ages across the UK and beyond got dressed up in colour in their homes and gardens to parade and send us their film clips! We stitched them all together to form the film.
pARTICIPANTS
Participants sent in films made on their phones from their homes, from across the UK from Swansea to Sheffield, Brighton to Bristol, and from Europe including the South of France and Czech Republic, plus an Australian film! The participants range in ages from one month to into their seventies, connected by colour and joining together across their homes to form THE RAINBOW PARADE! Screened on 1 May 2020, to celebrate this traditional parade day. Created and edited by Nikki Shaill, Originary Arts. Featuring an original song created, performed and recorded by Porscha Present, with support from Sinan Güçlü. Song inspired by 'Over the Rainbow' (credit,Robbins Music Corporation, on behalf of MGM).