ORLANDO, Fla. —
The Orlando Pride Festival is launching the Culture Club, a new section designed to celebrate diverse cultures and address feedback about inclusivity from local communities.
“Our local communities were expressing that our board makeup and our outreach was not in keeping with the demographics of the city,” said Shea Cutliff, co-director of the Color of Courage Collective, the group leading the initiative.
Cutliff explained that the Culture Club was created as a direct response to this feedback. “The Culture Club, I say, is a very direct response to our overall festival, which, it’s very mainstream. Culture Club is really a direct response to how people of color party, how we express our joy, how we express our fun,” Cutliff said.
The Culture Club will feature music distinct from the festival’s other stages. “You can expect to not hear top 100 music. We don’t want to hear anything you can hear at any other stage that we have. The intention is to not hear English the entire time,” Cutliff said.
Attendees can expect a variety of music genres, including bachata, salsa, Pakistani music, and Afrobeats.
In addition to music, the Culture Club will offer unique food and drink options. “We’re talking food, drinks. We’re talking culture. We’re talking intentionality and even the food vendors, even the people who are serving food, they will be vendors there that you won’t be able to find anywhere else in the festival,” Cutliff said.
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The Culture Club will also include a space to honor the victims of the Pulse nightclub tragedy. “Beyond it being a milestone anniversary year of the tragedy, we really wanted to make sure that they’re remembered in everything that we do. These are people who lost their lives being who they were at a moment where they were trying to express their most maximum joy, and we can’t celebrate without them being here with us,” Cutliff said.
Organizers hope the Culture Club will provide a meaningful and inclusive experience for all attendees. “We really want to celebrate ourselves, but we also want our allies and other people to be able to witness what we do. Feel free to join in on the festivities and how we get down, see how we party,” Cutliff said.