by Mel Green

Celebration of Change: since the first show on September 19, 1983 at the Red Ram Motor Lodge at 5th and Gambell (now the Dami Japanese Restaurant), Celebration has arguably been the premiere social and arts event each year for the Anchorage women’s community. Last Saturday’s show at Wendy Williamson Auditorium on the campus of University of Alaska Anchorage was the culmination of months of behind-the-scenes work by board members and volunteers of Radical Arts for Women (RAW) — including a long day’s tech rehearsal at the Wendy Williamson for stage crew, tech crew, and performers to make sure everything would be ready for the audience.

High point of the evening?  Hard to say: there were a number of them.  We had two funny and delightful emcees in Faux Paul and Moonlight Rainbow Mung-Bean — yes, their real names! (not); excellent and good humored ASL interpretation by Su Isakson and Natalie Page; fine poetry, great music, stupendous dance, humorous humor (the way it should be!); lots of double and not-so-double entendres; and, in celebration of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a moving multimedia tribute to Alaska lesbians who have served in our nation’s armed forces. When shortly thereafter audience members who had served, or are now serving, were asked to stand up, I’d estimate that at least 30 or 40 did so. We’re so glad that those of you still serving will soon be able to serve openly.

Thank you to all the board members and volunteers of RAW, including all the people both on stage and off stage, who brought us this 27th great show in the proud history of Celebration of Change.

Whether or not you were able to be there, we hope you’ll enjoy this slideshow, which includes photos from both the tech rehearsal and the show itself.

All photos and slideshow by Melissa S. (Mel) Green. See the original set in her Flickr photostream.