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photo courtesy Mardi Gras RVA
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photo by Dave Parrish
Host of Sparrows performs at a previous Mardi Gras celebration.
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photo by Lamarr Townsend
Mardi Gras at Dogtown Dance Theatre
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photo courtesy Mardi Gras RVA
Mardi Gras dancers
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photo by Dave Parrish
Mardi Gras partyers
We caught up to the busy and adventurous Elli Morris the other day because she’s the chief organizer for the upcoming Mardis Gras RVA. She also has two films in the RVA Environmental Film Festival running this week; the 12-minute The Great Return about the re-appearance of the Atlantic sturgeon in our hometown waters, and River Water, a two-minute collaboration of haiku and images. You can see them in the local documentary segment of the Sunday showings at the Byrd Theatre.
Morris has helmed the Manchester version of Mardis Gras four years running. The two separate days of events involve parades, mechanized and not, and, naturally, partying.
She observes, “Our event brings out an enormous amount of creativity. People who’ve moved here or been here a long time have told me, 'This makes me feel like I have a home.' It’s whatever people can imagine and make, creating their own ways of expressing themselves, which is what Mardi Gras is, not just drunks on Bourbon Street.”
And this year, Morris says with great enthusiasm, the parade has a tractor. Victory Farms is bringing its machine pulling a wagon of hay. The Quickness delivery company will be riding in it and tossing coupons for Lamplighter coffee. The processional will be enlivened, too, by the All the Saints Theater Co., and their giant puppets.
“One of the things I love about this is that originally the beads at Mardi Gras were Czech glass beads. So there was a real reason to holler, ‘Throw me something, mister!’ " Whatever gets thrown will be more environmentally and Richmond-themed. The event is for the promotion of community businesses and entrepreneurs.
One memorable set if costumes was a family who came as a car wash. “Mom and dad had fuzzies and the baby was in a stroller with bubbles, so it’s about creativity, not just purple, green and gold. It’s a cultural event, with diversity in it, in-depth and international.”
photo by Dave Parrish
Khalima performs at a Mardi Gras party.
The parades begin and end at Dogtown Dance Theatre, 109 W. 15th, and go to Porter Street, down to 10th, right on 10th, right on Bainbridge and then back up to Dogtown Dance.
The first parade is motorized and occurs at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 14, at 3 p.m., with shows from 4 to 7 p.m. The fun continues on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 17, with the more traditional walking parade at 5:30 p.m., and shows at Dogtown Dance from 7 to 10 p.m., followed by dancing. DJ Jesse James Félice is laying down powerful and festive sounds during and after the parades. The whole event is a fundraiser for Dogtown Dance, which opened in 2008 after extensive renovations to the abandoned former Bainbridge Junior High School gymnasium. The space is a center for dance and performing arts and home to the Ground Zero Dance Co.
There’s an option for businesses that would participate, but as Saturday is a major retail day, the organizers will connect the company with a nonprofit organization that will decorate the float for them. “The whole package is $200, which includes material and beads and float registration.” If there is time to adorn a float, the entry fee is $75 and that includes two tickets for the performances afterward. Individual walkers are free, but a big group, marching under their own auspices, is $75. The shows at Dogtown Dance are $15 for adults, $5 for children 5 to 12 years old.
The ensemble for the performances includes the Host of Sparrows Aerial Dance, Scarlett Starlet, the bellydancing Khalima of Illumination Dance Studio, Malayaworks modern dance company and the Pole Pressure dance troupe, “They are amazing,” Morris says. There’s also a Brazilian martial arts and salsa troupe Capoeira Resistencia and the merry music of the Happy Lucky Combo.
And if that's not enough, there’s also a silent auction and raffle.
What about the notoriously fickle February Richmond weather? Morris muses, “Last year, on Fat Tuesday, I think we were the only Mardi Gras parade in the world to go in the snow.”
Nonethless,, people on the route come out on their porches and balconies to watch, and they’re all invited to participate, “Grab some beads. It’s a community event,” Morris says.
Sophia’s International Cuisine will sell food upstairs at Dogtown, with food trucks outside to serve beignets and coffee after the parade. “Get some chicory coffee and powdery sugar biegnets and that’ll be your fuel to dance all night,” Morris says. Quench your thirst from all that dancing with the offerings of Triple Crossing Brewing Co.
