The Philadelphia Tribune
Philadelphia, USA - African-American performance groups who showed in the Mummers Parade on Sunday, said they were glad to be apart of the Mummers’ ongoing effort to diversify.
The Mummers parade has historically been chastised for offensive incidents that mock ethnic groups in addition to the lesbian and gay community.
....“Going into it, the band was aware of some of the conflict with the parade and the conflicts that happened before,” said Kristian Paradis, Musical Director for the Philadelphia Pan Stars steel orchestra, a group dedicated to the Trinidadian tradition of pan drumming. “But the way we looked at it, it’s similar to the growing pains of [Trinidad and Tobago] Carnival. We had a good idea of what to expect and our presentation is similar to what we have done at the Caribbean Carnival in New York or other Caribbean festivals on the East coast. And we got a great response from the other captains of the Mummers groups. They seemed genuinely appreciative of what we did. We were prepared to get resistance but there wasn’t.”
Paradis noted they were also well-received by the band, stating that “people were dancing and calling for more.”
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