UC Irvine to Host Gay and Lesbian Pride Celebration

The Orange County Gay and Lesbian Pride Celebration, Saturday and Sunday at UC Irvine’s Aldrich Park, will once again feature a tented country music and dance stage, which has annually been one of the 5-year-old festival’s most popular attractions.

As in the past, Floyds, a Long Beach country dance club, is organizing the entertainment, to include open dancing to recorded classic and new country hits and lessons in line and couple dances.

Among the live country acts scheduled are Girls in the Band, a musical group, and a variety of dance teams, including Floyds Cloggers and Floyds All Men, which is akin to a Chippendale’s troupe that never, however, takes off its cowboy hats and jeans, said Ray Hartshorn, Floyds’ music programmer and deejay.

Other festival events will include a Latin dance stage--with Salsa dancing new this year--and screenings of “To Support and Defend” (4:45 p.m. Saturday and 12:30 and 9 p.m. Sunday), a video representing the gay and lesbian perspective on military service.

Featured guest Stacey Q, the 1980s dance-music queen, will appear Saturday at 8 p.m. and Bronski Beat will perform Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

The Gay and Lesbian Gay Pride Parade, open to all, will begin Sunday at noon from UC Irvine Parking Lot P1 and proceed along Pereira Drive. Navy Petty Officer Keith Meinhold will serve as grand marshal. Meinhold was discharged by the Navy last summer after revealing his homosexuality on television, then reinstated after a district judge found the discharge unconstitutional.

The festival is produced by Orange County Cultural Pride Inc., a nonprofit corporation that “strives to foster an understanding of what it means to be gay in Orange County.”

Festival hours are Saturday, noon to 11 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Admission is $10. Information: (714) 637-7768.