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Amsterdam Pride 2019 Pictures Amsterdam Pride is one of the biggest Gay Pride events in Europe that culmanates in a spectacular parade on the city's most famous canal, during the first weekend of August. In 2019, the Pride Walk and Pride Park are on 27 July with the highlight of the week being the Canal Parade on 3 August and the Amsterdam Pride closing party the day after. The festival attracts several hundred-thousand visitors each year and is one of the largest annual public events in the Netherlands. | |
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Though Amsterdam has a worldwide reputation for being the gayest city in the world, even here intolerant conservative
views occasionally rear their ugly head.
A City Councillor recently started a crusade against the screening of porn films in gay bars and backrooms, and a previous Mayor said he wanted to ban nudity on the Canal Parade. So in true Dutch style there's now just as many sex filled screens in bars and even more nudity to enjoy on the Pride Parade. |
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Every year Pride Amsterdam is opened by the Pride Walk. It draws attention to the situation of LGBTI+ people in countries where homosexuality can lead to persecution or prosecution. The Pride Walk
is a showcase of the Amsterdam LGBTI+ community and starts at the Homomonument next to Westerkerk and finishes at the Vondelpark, where you can stay on for the Pride Park event.
Pride Park is the official opening of Pride 2019 and celebrates freedom in a park of love. Loads of activities like the Rainbow Market, sport activities by Pride & Sports, the playing field by Youth Pride NL and much more. The Vondelpark Openluchttheater is used as the mainstage with performances by many artists. This year "Eyes on Robert" is an exciting exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe - photographer, enfant terrible and queer. His transgressive work is characterised by an uncompromising curiosity for sexuality, the body and eroticism. His iconic nudes, celebrity portraits and documentation of New York's S&M scene in the 1970s and 1980s pushed artistic boundaries and broke taboos. With prudish values on the rise, Mapplethorpe's work may now, 30 years after his death, be more relevant than ever. It's on from 27 July to 31 July, 11:00 - 23:00 at Marnixstraat 409, 1016 XX, Amsterdam.
Pink at the Rijksmuseum is a special tour that uses works of art in the Rijksmuseum to portray the history of homosexuality in the Netherlands - from the 16th until the 20th century, from Sodom and Gomorra to the pink triangle. There are daily guided tours - every day between 28th of July and the 4th of August at 11am in Dutch and 2pm in English. The tour lasts for about one hour. |
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From 1996 onwards Amsterdam Pride has been a festival to celebrate freedom and diversity in the capital city, and not so much about equal rights. The peak of the festival is the Canal Parade, a parade of boats from Westerdok
over Prinsengracht, Amstel River, Zwanenburgwal and Oudeschans to Oosterdok.
If you want to bring your own boat, you will need to purchase a Pride Vignette. The number of boats has intensely increased so do make sure you have a pass. |
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The theme of Pride Amsterdam 2019 is "Remember the past, create the future". "This year they are commemorating the Stonewall riots, which broke out in New York 50 years ago and became a decisive moment in the history
of the LGBT movement", says director Lucien Spee of Amsterdam Gay Pride. A year later, in 1970, the first Pride Parade was held in New York.
Amsterdam Pride spans a week of various activities for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex - LGBTI people, including exhibitions, cultural and sporting events. There are also street parties in those streets where there's a concentration of gay bars, like Reguliersdwarsstraat, Zeedijk, Warmoesstraat and alongside Amstel. On Rembrandtplein there's a closing party on the Sunday after the Canal Parade. |
Amsterdam Pride is run by a non-profit organisation committed to emancipation, social, legal and social equality and acceptance of gay men, bisexuals and lesbians, and also for those who do not want socially dominant gender roles or to conform (as masculine women, feminine men and queers) or assume a different physical gender identity throughout their lives (such as transgenders and transsexuals). They believe that to achieve visibility for diversity is particularly necessary. The primary objective of the Amsterdam Pride Foundation is to organise activities and events in a wide range of diverse public spaces. Amsterdam Pride has to be one of the greatest Pride events around the World and you really do have to see it, to believe it.
Photos ©2019 Out Europe BV. All Rights Reserved. |
