Wednesday, June 22, 2011

It's always 'Fun' with Police, Queer Police and Queers!


Debates, workshops, performances, party; it all happened during the Queeristan weekend on June 17th - 19th in Gallery Schijnheilig in Amsterdam. Several workshops on Saturday June 18th prepared the public action for Sunday: next to "Unpredictable Bodies I" with "Trash Jamming and Body Rhytms" also a workshop on "Queering Direct Action related to Rebel Clowning".

For the announcement of the Queeristan weekend see:  http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2011/06/76574.shtml and scedule:  http://queeristan2011.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/updated_program/


Saturday, June 18th the "Unpredictable Bodies" workshops showed opportunities for the public action on Sunday, June 19th. This year the first edition of the "Queer Canal Pride, X-tra dry!".
The idea was to organize a critical parody about the mega commercial "Amsterdam Gay Pride"  http://queeristan2011.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/queer-canal-pride-xtra-dry-direct-action/

The practical workshops on Saturday afternoon gave introductions about how to make music with trash instruments, about rebel clowning and new action forms, etc. After a while all participants gathered to exchange experiences and have a rehearsal for the public action on Sunday.

Sunday, June 19th tenths of queers joined the "Queer Canal Pride, X-tra dry!". Amsterdam rebel clowns delivered the Queer Police in a try to organize the right left Queer order. The march started around 15.00, went to the Leidsestraat, had a great moment all shouting "I'm an Angry Queer!" entering the Reguliersdwarsstraat, followed by a fantastic boat auction at the Rembrandt square: selling the dry (INGay, TNT, etc) canal boats for the highest price! Participants and public reacted enthusiastically.

Then the plan was to go further... (Un)fortunatelly the coordinating between Police, Queer Police and Queers brought some misunderstandings about the route. Police in the Reguliersbreestraat thought the route should be announced. Queers thought cooperating with Queer Police should already be more than enough!

So the Police blocked the shorter route going home by the Spui and the march enjoyed the far longer route by the Vijzelstraat, Vijzelgracht and Weteringschans. Followed by police vans and several police motorbikers. It felt very safe! Then the police tried to block the queers to enter the Leidse square. With guerilla techniques (splitting in different groups) finally everyone got 'home' and yeahhh... of course toooooo long followed by police. Police who even mistrusted their dearest colleagues from the Queer Police... (in what kind of World do we live in?!)

In the film no pictures of the police - but a general impression about the first edition of the "Queer Canal Pride, X-tra dry!"  http://www.youtube.com/user/spiritofsquatters#p/u/0/6L9XWSNme4g


More pictures will possibly follow later

- E-Mail: rebelact@ddh.nl Website: http://www.rebelact.nl

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