San Francisco Gay Chours Storms Poland with Love
2.6.2005
Hi All, I'm part of GALA Choruses, which is essentially the Interpride of the gay choral movement. The Boston Gay Men's Chorus is touring Europe right now, and just did a concert in Wroclaw, Poland. I thought that given the other stuff going on in Poland with regards to Pride cancellation, you all might be interested to hear about their experience there.
Regards, Aidan
(Vice President, SF Pride)
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From Steve Smith, ED of BGMC (from the GALA list):
Subject: Boston Gay Men's Chorus in Poland - update
Steve Smith writing from Wroclaw Poland here. Our concert last night caused major controversy. Given that I have limited time and resources here to have internet access, I cannot put together a formal press release, but please feel free to use this first hand report. We are in all the newspapers here in Poland this morning and were on most television news as well. FYI, we leave Poland early this morning for a 7 hour bus trip to Prague. I expect to next have internet access on Wed. morning, Prague time.
Our concert in Wroclaw was protested by an extreme right wing group called the League of Polish Families. All of the locals here said that they are a reactionary group tacitly funded and supported by conservative elements within the Catholic church here. Attention to our concert - the first openly gay chorus concert in this country - was heightened after protests and violence in Warsaw last week when the Mayor cancelled a gay pride rally. The day beofe our concert, the local organizer named Jaroslav Blandzinski, was arrested for handing out concert flyers at the opera house. Mr. Blandzinki is the owner of the only gay club in the city and took organizing the concert as a personal challenge. He was later released, but no reason was given for his arrest.
The local director of Filharmonic Hall, our concert venue, has been under public attack to cancel the concert for a week, but she held fast and did not do so despite municipal pressure. On Monday morning, the League of Polish Families stated that they would purchase all remaining concert tickets in order to occupy the concert and force cancellation of the concert. At that time, the concert hall suspended all ticket sales and would only honor tickets bought in advance (however, ticket sales resumed at the door just before the concert in person. Advance sales had been 200, but more than 450 were eventually sold...almost hall capacity of 500).
Also the League issued a release that they would form a human chain around the hall to prohibit the Chorus from entering and "defiling" the hall. After police intervention, they were not allowed to do this. At this point, early in the day, we noticed an substantial police presence at our hotel, with 2 large blue police vans filled with 4 armed police at each entrance. Chorus members were advised to stay in the hotel. Although the concert hall was only 4 blocks away, we were required to be transported to the concert in busses that received police escort. At the hall, I saw more than 25 armed policemen forming a secure path to the concert hall from the street. 5 more vans with obvious riot gear were parked next to the hall.
There were about 20 total protesters. They had enormous signs and banners with crude sexually explicit anti gay cartoons and black flags with their logo. They shouted we were pedophiles and diseased. An unexpected counter demonstation formed on the other sideof the courtyard made up of (I am told) gay rights activists and anarchists. There was about an hour of continuous shouting matches as the chorus and then audience members entered. There was also a crowd of more than 200 watching. I am not aware of any physical violence against the chorus or attendees. TV crews and reporters from Warclow, Warsaw, Katowice, Poznan and other cities were in abundance. Reuben Reynolds and I did more than 30 interviews thru the day and film crews recorded our rehearsal and concert.
Reaction to the concert from the audience was astonishing. The ovations lasted nearly 10 minutes and the chorus had to reenter the stage twice for bows after the concert. Literally hundreds of people were visibily in tears. Numerous local political officials including the Mayor and the wife of Poland's president did not attend. A proclamation from Mayor Menino for the event was read to the crowd and then given to the local organizer, Jaroslav Blandzinski in lieu of any officials. Our tour began in Berlin where we performed a concert at the Haus der kulturen der Welt and sang at Berlin's gay pride festival for an estimated crowd of 700,000. We next travel to Prague before returning home on Sat. July 2. I will be happy to answer inquries to the best of our physical ability when we regain internet access in Prague.
Photos by Svavar, rehersal in San Fransico, February 2005
Thank you, Steve Smith
Executive Director, BGMC