The Colorado Black Arts Festival has invited special guests from around the region to help us celebrate in a spectacle of color, movement, dance, art, and music. Civic clubs, youth groups, churches, and businesses are collectively preparing creative forces to design colorful elements which demonstrate a cohesive community spirit of cooperation. The Boogaloo Celebration Parade is a festival tradition featuring marching bands, drum and drill teams from Colorado and the region, themed floats, sport and entertainment personalities, local dance teams, and other exciting elements that create one of a kind performance parade.
The parade route will be on festival grounds in historic Denver City Park. For 2022, the end of the parade will be at the Kuumba Stage where we invite any group that wants to perform a 3-minute routine on the stage for festival attendees to enjoy. This has been a very popular feature of the parade over the years and we want to continue the tradition of performance.
Mardi Gras Indians are African-American Carnival revelers in New Orleans, Louisiana, who dress up for Mardi Gras in suits influenced by Native American ceremonial apparel. The tradition began as an African American tribute to American Indians who helped runaway slaves in Louisiana. This tradition of these masking Indians dates back to the 1700s. There are over 40 Mardi Gras Indian tribes in the city of New Orleans. One new costume is created each year by a Mardi Gras Indian for a special day, Mardi Gras. Competition is nurtured in a creative climate that awards prestige and respect to the person, who is able to outsew, out-dress, and out-sing” another Mardi Gras Indian of equal rank from another tribe. The costumes are made of colorful ostrich plumes, feathers, sequins, rhinestones, ribbons, and beads. These costumes weigh over 100 lbs with beaded patches which are the base of many suits, considered works of art, and worthy of preservation as a form of true indigenous folk art.