This summer marks the 51st anniversary of Pride celebrations in Rochester, and its organizers – led by Trillium Health – expect a massive turnout. In preparation of the July 15 festival at Cobbs Hill Park, they’ve expanded the footprint and are doubling the number of food trucks booked for the event.
Susanna Speed, Trillium’s Senior Director of Diversity, Equity, and Belonging, said this year’s guiding theme is about love and acceptance, while honoring Pride’s legacy.
“Making sure that in a crazy world where folks are often made to feel like they are not valid and their identities aren't valid,” she said, “that this is a place where they are valid, and they are celebrated.”
Drag will be featured heavily in the festival’s entertainment, including a headlining performance by singer-songwriter Ada Vox, the first drag queen to place in the top 10 on “American Idol.”
Sharing top billing with Vox is Thea Austin, a multi-genre performer who fronted the Eurodance group Snap! and is perhaps best known for writing and singing on the chart-topping 1992 hit “Rhythm Is A Dancer.” Immediately an iconic tonic, that anthem still spins in dance clubs today.
Austin, 63, recalled how she sat alone with the driving beat track the producers presented to her, and let the right words come to her. The lyrics are full of optimism and sound like a hymn, urging solidarity in joyful expression and being a body: “Lift your hands and voices/free your mind and join us.”
Austin recorded the vocals for the synth-heavy, mesmerizing song in one take, and the song was chosen as a single. It was picked up by DJs and bumped to in clubs worldwide.
“I knew it was special,” she said. “It had great energy. But I didn’t know it would last a lifetime.”
Austin’s approach to songwriting is still “pure passion” and intuitive, and she writes about the freedom to love and to express oneself as well as openness to the possibility of joy. Her message and mission are simple – and couldn’t be more in line with the Pride festival’s tone.
“My purpose is music and love,” she said. “I don’t have to search myself too deeply.”
But Austin didn’t always have such clarity about her role in this messy world.
A Pittsburgh native, she got her start in the biz writing for a magazine called The R&B Report, a short-lived Black music and radio industry guide in circulation from 1987 to 1990. After the periodical closed down, Austin spent six months in Japan, performing covers of popular songs night after night.
The experience was educational, in that she gained the chops for marathon performances and learned to navigate racism that, she found, wasn’t exclusive to America.
Austin was the first artist to take the stage at jazz club Blue Note Tokyo when it opened in 1988, and the venue connected her with established musicians.
“Jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Bennett, Joe Williams, Carmen McRae, George Benson, McCoy Tyner,” she said. “I mean, the list goes on and on and on, the greats that I get to hang out with.”
Back stateside, music helped Austin ride out some years of bad relationships, setbacks, and deep depression before “Rhythm is a Dancer” rocketed to the chart tops. She went on a world tour with rapper Turbo B (whose bars are featured on the hit), which included opening for Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” tour in Romania. Other dance hits followed with Snap! and other groups Soulsearcher and Pusaka, and her music has been featured in film soundtracks and video games.
These days, Austin is a regular headliner at Pride festivals around the U.S. and is recording new songs with producer David Alphen. She’s also preparing to record a TEDx talk on the healing power of music and how forging a better society starts with your own well-being.
“It is essential,” she said. “We're living in some difficult times, and I think once people can wrap their heads around how important it is to take care of oneself, I think we'd definitely be a much better human race, you know? Because when the mind is well, when a person understands the ultimate importance of self-care, self-love, and self-preservation, they carry a different frequency. They carry a different vibration and it is a healthier, happier one.”
Austin knows the hits are expected when she performs, and she enjoys facilitating that sweaty, glorious revelry of letting go of doubt and fear – even for a little while – and being at home in your body.
“You know, people listen to dance music and they feel better,” she said. “It gets them on the inside and starts to create an internal movement that becomes external. My success is in high-energy dance music. And I honor it.”
For full details on Rochester Pride 2023, visit trilliumhealth.org/patient-and-community-services/pride.
Rebecca Rafferty is an arts writer for CITY Magazine.