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New Orleans does not own Mardi Gras
KoriBori's Latin LGBTQS+ Mardi Gras - Las Vegas 2022 is the first ever Mardi Gras in the US focused on the Latino & LGBTQS+ community. Forget all of your misconceptions of what Mardi Gras is because they are mostly wrong. It is not only about women who bare their breasts in order to receive beads as television shows would like you to think because beads are given freely at any of the 100s of parades around New Orleans during the "Christmas Season". It is actually more about families gathering out in the open areas around New Orleans, BBQing, playing frisbee and football tossing and watching the parades that pass by and catching the beads and other goodies the float Krewes toss at them all day long. My goal here is to create a Mardi Gras in Las Vegas that eventually caters to everyone in the Las Vegas Valley.
Also, Mardi Gras is not required to have a particular musical sound to it (like a New Orleans Brass Jazz Band sound). Actually, the Latino community knows the Mardi Gras celebration as Carnival. Mardi Gras is just French for Fat Tuesday. Why? Because it is the last day of the "Christmas Season", the day before the start of the Easter season which is also known as Lent. During Lent you must give things up to cleanse yourself for the Easter pageant. So, the day before the start of Lent, Mardi Gras, you must fill yourself up with the things you must give up. Drink as much as you can, eat as much as you can, have fun as much as you can & enjoy yourself as much as you can. This period is similar to but different from the period in the Muslim culture known as Ramadan (a time of fasting and helping the less fortunate).
The Christmas season in Medieval Europe was also known as a time to give alms to the poor. For this reason, the King & Queen of France used to parade down the streets of Paris and throw out coins to their subjects. I'm doubtful they ever made it to New Orleans to do this but the tradition was carried out by people in their court there possibly (history buffs can correct me)? But when the people beheaded their not so beloved Kings and Queens, this tradition ended. But in New Orleans they carried on without their good old King and Queen. On the old Christmas Day (Three Kings Day - January 6th in most cultures), they would name a false King and Queen and this newly crowned royalty would be the ones given the right to throw out alms (coins again I believe) to the poor in parades throughout the Christmas Season (January 6th until Ash Wednesday). Eventually, groups formed called Krewes which became responsible for creating their own parades and naming their own King and Queen. These Krewes collected monies for the poor, created spectacular parades floats and had great masquerade balls during the Christmas Season. Eventually, tossing of real coins by real Kings and Queens turned to tossing of fake coins (doubloons), tossing of glass beads and now plastic colored beads. And the colors of Mardi Gras which the beads often match, have significance. For KoriBori's Mardi Gras Las Vegas the official colors and meaning are as follows:
Blue | Green: Mother Earth
Silver: Present
Gold: Future
Another part of Mardi Gras in New Orleans is spontaneous roving bands. This tradition is again a part of the Medieval European pagan festival known as Wassail (from Old Norsk 'ves hail' meaning good health). Wassail was the annual blessing of or 'wishing good health to" the apple trees to ensure their abundance for the next season. Why bless the apple trees? Because apples were a great source of nutrition that stored well in the cold and could get the people through the winter.
One part of wassailing was going from house to house and singing (the start of caroling) and playing music to the owners to come out and join them and requiring the owner of the house to let them come in, feed and drink them and add more wine and toast to the wassail bowl. In Latin American countries this tradition is still carried out during the Christmas Season and is known today as "Las Posadas" or "Parranda" or "Asulto" (interesting enough it is where the English word assault comes from because a Parranda shows up unannounced at someone's house singing, expects to be let in and be fed and given alcoholic drinks.). The New Orleans roving bands is just a slightly different variation of the Posadas/Parranda where in they no longer go door to door requiring to be fed and drank.
So, KoriBori's Latin LGBTQS+ Mardi Gras will have all of the elements of the New Orleans Mardi Gras but will have its own sound, its own take on Posadas/Parrandas, its own color combinations and meaning, and its own variation of Wassailing. I hope you all will join me in creating a great atmosphere and come with me on the new adventure in Las Vegas which I hope to grow into the world's largest Carnival/Mardi Gras celebration.
Sincerely,
KoriBori (aka Mardi Gras King of the World, Good Bunnie, Two-Hats)
Mardi Gras aka Martes Grasa aka Carnival
Note: although New Orleans is known as a French settlement, it actually was a Spanish settlement first and that is why New Orleans looks a lot like San Juan, Puerto Rico and many other North & South American Spanish settlements with narrow streets, rot iron metal window dressings and gates and small balconys.