The Disco Amigos Brought Mardi Gras to London's New Year
The Disco Amigos went to London and got this souvenir photo, courtesy of Disco Amigos
The Mardi Gras dance team remembers their appearance in London’s New Year’s Day Parade.
Recently, The Disco Amigos Mardi Gras dance team brought a little New Orleans flavor to the 2024 New Year’s Day Parade in London, England. They brought back this report. Parades on the Uptown route start on Friday night when The Disco Amigos will be a part of Cleopatra. They’ll also dance Sunday in King Arthur, on Thursday, February 8 in Babylon, and on Saturday, February 10 in Iris..
It is New Year’s Eve 2023, our second full day in London. The Disco Amigos are in London to perform in their New Year’s Day Parade.
For months, we “Londoneers”—a contingent of about 30 Disco Amigos dancers from New Orleans along with another 30 from our sister krewe in Birmingham, Alabama—have rehearsed and re-rehearsed choreographed parade dances to three iconic disco songs – “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme,” “Disco Inferno” and “Shake Your Groove Thing.” Our final rolling rehearsal is tonight in the dark chilliness of a park close to the hotel. Later, we attend a New Year’s Eve party in our hotel with champagne and a D.J. We dance to disco, watch fireworks at midnight, and then go to bed. Anticipation makes it hard to sleep.
Disco Amigos are invited to be interviewed live on BBC in the early hours of New Year’s Day, so organizer/spokesperson, Kerry Packuko and 10 dancers wake up at 4 a.m. and don disco wigs, silver, gold and black uniforms, and full makeup in the pre-dawn darkness.
This will be a long day for the dawn patrol, but passing up the BBC invitation is out of the question. Kerry enthusiastically describes what it is about disco that crowds love and explains to the BBC audience the Mardi Gras tradition of throwing purple, green and gold beads. She tells the interviewer our krewe will be handing out “Funky 45s,” our signature throws, to spectators along the parade route. Then it’s back to the hotel for breakfast and a short rest before catching the motor coach to the parade lineup (we are advised by our London hosts that it is a “motor coach”, never a “bus”).
An early morning interview for the BBC, photo courtesy of the Disco Amigos
It is chilly and overcast as the motor coach arrives at the drop off. Rain is predicted, so we are allowed to wear coats, hats and gloves until just before call time. As we walk from the bus to the parade lineup, we are surrounded by a riot of colors and pageantry from around the globe! There is a group from Ecuador rehearsing their parade dances. Acrobats from Ghana perform amazing stunts. Dancers of all ages from Thailand assist each other to put on their elaborate floral costumes. A group from Australia practices their routine wearing trampoline shoes. When we see a dance troop from Barcelona whose costumes are skimpy, we’re grateful for the coats wrapped tightly around us.
Disco Amigos are number 54 in the lineup of marching bands, “megaflatables,” horse-drawn carriages, cheerleaders and internationally based dance groups. It feels surreal to be in Mardi Gras mode on the streets of London with all these other groups. A male dance team from Poland comes over to learn our dances and catch on fast as disco is universal. Spectators from Austria show us their Macarena moves from behind the barricades. We see a cluster of six-year-olds dressed as jockeys riding Shetland ponies. What an amazing experience, all of us united by a shared love of entertaining the masses!
We shed our warm clothing and finally roll, prepared to dance the two-mile route without breaks. The parade is televised internationally with British announcers along the route, and thanks to the relationships we formed with the parade’s coordinators, our reputation precedes us! The British announcers have already heard that we are a New Orleans group selected to bring a taste of Mardi Gras to London and remark—sincerely we believe—on our enthusiasm. They encourage the audience to “look out for these guys” and call us “a force to be reckoned with.”
Our excitement reaches a fever pitch, but the atmosphere at the London parade is vastly different from that of New Orleans. The Brits do not exhibit the same exuberance as the average Mardi Gras parade-goer.
The six to eight person-deep crowd consists of not only Londoners but visitors from around the world. Though Brits have a reputation for being stoic, they wave excitedly and snaps photos. People from all over the world shoot videos of us that we will never see. But there are limits to their enthusiasm. Although London is known for neighborhood pubs on every corner, no drinking is allowed at a London parade. In New Orleans we can interact and invite individuals to dance with us, but London’s highly regulated crowds stay neatly sandwiched between barricades and buildings. It’s impossible to engage with them the way we do at home, but when we do our “jump and bump,” the crowd cheers and seems to love it. Many accept our boogie down challenge, dancing vigorously to acquire beads or a “Funky 45.”
The Disco Amigos on the parade route in London, photo courtesy of the Disco Amigos
The parade travels through historic London, so we danced within eyesight of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Trafalgar Square. Forty-five minutes quickly go by and we near the culmination of the parade, the area where we stop and perform for the international BBC broadcast. We watch The Veteran Cycle Club, the act just ahead of us, finish their performance, and that is when reality hits. We are up next, performing live before an international audience!
As the cycle group exits the grandstand area, we run to get into performance formation and stare into the BBC cameras as they stare back at us! We can see ourselves on the big screen behind the grandstand. During our two minutes of fame, we remember to smile as our bodies go on autopilot and the familiar music triggers our respective muscle memories. At the end of the dance, the crowd claps and cheers. We walk to our awaiting motor coach and just after boarding, it starts to rain!
The Disco Amigos dancing in the London New Year’s Day Parade, photo courtesy of the Disco Amigos
Back at the hotel, we excitedly watch the parade and our performance on YouTube, create Facebook posts, and text with our friends across the pond. The entire trip has been like a dream and we don’t want to wake up! We fly home on January 4, exhausted but with a sense of satisfaction and many memories. A few days later, we receive correspondence from Robert Bone, the chairman and founder of the London New Year’s Day Parade, telling us that the crowds numbered over half a million and over 1,000 TV stations around the world televised the event.
Mr. Bone adds that he cannot wait to see us perform again in 2026 at one of the parades his organization sponsors in London, Madrid or Rome, but we have little time to dream about a potential next trip. After all, Mardi Gras 2024 comes early this year.
