Pride LGBTQ+ Celebration Review

Pride LGBTQ+ Celebration

On February 14th 2020, Orpheus students marked St Valentine’s Day in rather an unusual way. With both afternoon and evening performances, they chose to celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month. As a result of an intensive week of study and exploration of the subject, they show-cased in a variety of creative ways what they had learned and discovered. As with all their shows, there was breadth, diversity and originality and all credit goes to the staff who led and supported the students as well as to the students themselves for their response.

On arrival we were treated to food and drink designed and produced by students, the proceeds of which were donated to MindOUT, an LGBTQ mental health organisation. We were then invited into The Barn to study a beautifully mounted exhibition by the photography team of superb photos they had taken on a visit to Brighton Museum and The Marlborough Arms, a Kemptown base with LGBTQ links. The students had successfully got to grips with sophisticated new cameras and editing equipment recently purchase thanks to a fundraising campaign for Orpheus.

There then followed non-stop lively and colourful entertainment through inventive music, prose, poetry, dance and drama, all reflecting aspects of LGBTQ+. Everything shown reflected the amount of learning that had taken place on the subject, showing the journey of discovery of an important subject, much of which was new to performers and audience alike.

Congratulations to all involved. They should be proud of their PRIDE!

Ann Lovelace