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Mummers Strut Their Stuff
New Year's Day Parade Celebrates 100th Year
By Murray Dubin
PHILADELPHIA, November 5, 2000 -- The best parade in America is held on the first day of the New Year in Philadelphia.
Unlike the Rose Bowl Parade, no corporate sponsors foot the bill. Unlike the Mardi Gras, no big shots run the show. This is the Mummers Parade, a proletariat pageant where more than 12,000 men, women and children prance, dance and strut up - never down - the street. The Liberty Bell may make Philadelphia famous, but the Mummers are its heart.
On Jan. 1, 2001, the street spectacle that is the Mummers Parade will mark its 100th birthday. One hundred years of burlesque, Broadway musical and Hell's Angels acting like the Rockettes. A century-old masquerade with saxophones, sequins and sneakers spray-painted gold. Stand on the sidewalk and watch.
It's free.
This is urban folklore seen only here, drawing its roots from many sources: working-class Americans mocking 19th Century militiamen, 18-Century Europeans street parades, Mumming plays of many cultures many years ago, and ancient Saturnalia and Bacchanalia festivals.
How to explain a parade that officially begins at 8:45 a.m., but is unofficially still going on 14 hours later? Imagine a plumber in kilts pretending that he's a "Scot on Viagra." Fifteen men in green sequin tuxedos doing a karaoke version of Frank Sinatra's "My Way." A 60-man string band dressed as angels playing "Joy to the World." A four-minute dance version of "The Island of Dr. Moreau." Seven hundred men in matching
wench dresses and wigs.It is eclectic and marvelous, and the applause goes on and on for the electricians, cops and longshoremen who put this show on every year.
The revelry may last one day, but Mummer clubs work 365. They develop a theme, create costumes, build
sets and props and rehearse musical and dance numbers. Beef and beer nights, bingos and member contributions pay the $80,000 that some clubs spend to go up the street. So the performance isn't for money, but for pride and bragging rights back in the neighborhood where the clubs serve as unofficial community centers.The parade is divided into four divisions: comics, fancy clubs, string bands and fancy brigades.
The comics are the largest part, making up about two-thirds of all marchers. They kick the day off and are there to make us laugh. The fancy clubs, the smallest segment, are there to make us ooh and aah with
beautiful and elaborate floats. The string bands, a crowd favorite, put on four-minute, live-music performances. Last up the street are the fancy brigades, which put on mini-Broadway shows with choreographed dance numbers and huge sets and props. The brigades are judged not on the street in front of City Hall like everyone else, but after a performance inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center nearby. (Here, seats must be paid for.)Judges score costumes, presentation and more in a decision that brings anguish or delight back at the clubhouses New Year's night. This is a celebration, but it is also a competition. Forget the Super Bowl. In the South Philadelphia neighborhood that is home to many Mummers, New Year's Day is what it's all about.
It is the time when grandfathers and grandsons play banjo together. When men who don't dance put on dresses, carry parasols and dance the day away as comics. Nothing like this happens anywhere else. Come to the Mummers Parade.
For more information about the parade, call (215) 636-1666. If you want to sit while you watch, call that number as well to ask about $12 tickets for seating in the City Hall judging stands. For tickets to the Convention Center to see the Fancy Brigades (also $12), call (800) 462-6811. You can also look at
www.mummers.com.For more information about travel to Philadelphia, call (800) GOPHILA or visit
www.gophila.com.###
Murray Dubin is a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the author of "South Philadelphia: Mummers, Memories and the Melrose Diner," published in 1996 by Temple University Press.
| Travel to Philadelphia information: | (800) GOPHILA, www.gophila.com |
| Parade information and tickets ($12) in City Hall judging stands: | (215) 636-1666 |
| Convention Center Fancy Brigade Show ($12) & Mummers Fest: | (800) 942-2116, www.mummersfancybrigades.com |
| Mummers information online: | www.gophila.com/mummers |
