Dragons, Drinking, Dancing: US Party Week

What is it about the second week in February that gets Americans partying in the streets?   All across the nation, all through the week, we’ll will be partying down. Well, Chinese Americans, Americans protesting violence against women, and silly acting-out Christian Americans are going to party like crazy this week.

In one week, we have Chinese Lunar New Year, with dragons on parade.  And Valentine’s Day, with the new addition of “One Billion Rising” street dancing flash mobs (see below.)  And Mardi Gras, a religious excuse for dancing, and of course, drinking.  To the streets, revelers!

Actually these are all international holidays; you’ll see (and hear) these revelers all over the globe.  There are two distinctly American holidays this week as well. US presidents Lincoln and Washington were born in February, and their birthdays have been combined into a federal holiday, President’s Day.

Which is really boring, just speeches, proclamations and a Monday off.  No dancing or drinking or dragons for Abe and George.

When I was a kid in school February was all about Abe and George art projects, stovepipe hats and cherry trees.  And lots of doilies and red paper for Valentines.  Pity the poor school teachers trying to squeeze something educational out of these holidays. 

Oh yeah, and Ground Hog’s Day – we had that last week.  Do other nations celebrate that, or with as much attention?  Made a few silly art projects of Punxsutawny Phil also.

Much more fun than speeches about Abe and George are the dragons leading colorful parades and firecrackers in cities with large Chinatown’s, like San Francisco and New York.

And Tuesday there will be crazy fun in the open bar known as New Orleans, drinking and dancing and misbehavin’ in the street for Mardi Gras.  But even in small town somewhat straight churches, like my little Pacific Grove congregation, we will have a Mardi Gras party too.  No drinking, I expect, or headdresses and brass bands.  But we’ll be eating great buttermilk pancakes, in the spirit of “Fat Tuesday;” get rid of the fat in the house before 40 days of simple Lenten fare.

And a new thing this year; our church will practice that most Biblical of pre-Lenten spiritual disciplines: karaoke.  When I was a parish minister we got into the Mardi Gras spirit with silly things, talent shows usually, lots of silly kids.  But karaoke?  I’ll tell you next week how it goes.

And my favorite new holiday, or new way of celebrating the old holiday, Valentine’s Day; One Billion Rising, one billion women worldwide who will dance in the streets in flash mob dance strikes in protest of violence against women. 

For the past 15 years communities across the nation (and world?) have performed Eve Ensler’s play,  The Vagina Monologues on Valentines Day as an educational protest of violence against women; “V-Day” stood for victory over violence as much as Valentine.  But for the past couple years, and this year with a big bang, communities of women and men are planning to fill streets with dance on Thursday, one billion people they hope.

It’s an inspirational movement, the choreography by Debbie Allen, the songs, the images of girls in India and Africa and Latin America doing the simple movements.  Check out You Tube for One Billion Rising. 

On their FAQs page they answer the simple question, “Why dance?” with:

When One Billion bodies rise and dance on 14 February 2012, we will join in solidarity, purpose and energy and shake the world into a new consciousness. Dancing insists we take up space. It has no set direction but we go there together. It's dangerous, joyous, sexual, holy, disruptive. It breaks the rules. It can happen anywhere at anytime with anyone and everyone. It's free. No corporation can control it. It joins us and pushes us to go further. It's contagious and it spreads quickly. It's of the body. It's transcendent.

To show the world that we want to end violence against one billion women and girls! By being a part of One Billion Rising we will all discover our solidarity and the scope of the issue. We will come to know that ending violence against women is as important as ending poverty, or Aids or global warming. We will come to see that it is not a local issue or particular to any culture or religion or village or age. We will come to see what is possible. when One Billion bodies rise and dance on 14 February 2013, we will join in solidarity, purpose and energy and shake the world into a new consciousness.

That sounds like the most fun holiday to me.  Even better than karaoke.  You’ll find me Thursday afternoon dancing on the streets of Monterey.  I’ll tell you about that too next week.

Party on, world.

Copyright © 2013 Deborah Streeter