The group that represents the LGBTQIA+ community in North Adams, Massachusetts is launching a new event. On March 11th, North Adams Pride is holding the inaugural Northern Lights Ball at the city’s Elks Lodge on Eagle Street. One of the group’s leaders, Andrew Fitch, says it’s intended to shake off the winter blues and expand programming outside of traditional zones like Pride Month in June. He spoke with WAMC.
FITCH: The story of North Adams Pride, to my understanding, goes back several years, because there have been queer people who have lived in the Berkshires forever, sometimes a little more hidden than others. But back in June of 2021, is when, to my understanding, the first Pride celebration ever in North Adams happened, and that was down in the MASS MoCA courtyard. I, fortunately, had just arrived in North Adams, and I was living in the Flatiron Building in North Adams at the time, and was able to go to that first Pride celebration and loved it and met all these wonderful people. And so, after that we started to discuss, should we continue this momentum? And everybody agree that we should. So, it was sort of born with that, I believe. It continued to be a part of the Fall Foliage Parade. We've had, actually, award-winning floats. We've won these major awards for our floats in the Fall Foliage Parade in North Adams the last two years as well. We've also done a Trans Day of Remembrance candlelight vigil, and we're now also wanting to do this larger celebration, this winter ball. We had a discussion, basically, what was it, last year, after our pride celebration last year – which was also epic – down at MASS MoCA plaza. We discussed, what do we want to do moving forward? You know, how do we want to engage with our community in the Northern Berkshires not just in the month of June, which is Pride month, but also all around the calendar year? And how do we want to do so a little more inclusively as well? So, we decided we wanted to offer the community and our allies this Northern Lights Ball. We wanted to give people an opportunity to come out and dance and have a great time and connect with each other and see some fantastic performances.
WAMC: This first annual Northern Lights ball on March 11th- Talk to me, what is this going to look like? It promises glitter, glam and sparkles. Sounds like fun. Tell me some more.
We have some drag queens are going to be performing. They're also going to be emceeing the event. We are also bringing in some performers from Northampton. They lead Northampton Vogue Nights. And so, these are these are ballroom performers. They're going to come in and do some demos for us and also encourage the audience to participate. For those who aren't familiar with the ballroom scene, think voguing, think “Paris Is Burning” documentary, think “Pose,” the TV show. So, a great opportunity to experience this firsthand. As we know, this has never existed in the Berkshires, to our understanding, so we’re really excited about offering this too. We also have DJ Gabby. Gabby is a well-known DJ in the Berkshires too, so we've secured them as well. So excited about that. So yeah, it's going to be a lot of dancing, a lot of performances, a lot of fun, everyone's going to be dressed up pretty interestingly, too. We call this the Northern Lights Ball for a bunch of reasons. But for one, Northern Berkshire, but also lights, Northern Lights, and just that hopefully will inspire people to kind of glam themselves up, to brighten themselves up with actually literal LEDs on their bodies if they want to, or glitter, or whatever it might be. But it should be a really bright and fun and exciting experience for everyone.
What are you hoping folks get out of the first annual Northern Lights Ball?
Is a hell of a time. Is a heck of a time, excuse me. [laughs] Yeah, we're definitely just hoping to provide a really great connection opportunity for people, show them that they can have a really great time with us, that North Adams pride is. it's about inclusion, it's about celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community in the Berkshires, but it's also about connecting everyone and showing people that we can all have a really great time together if we focus more on inclusion.
