Parade
Rex has held more parades in New Orleans than any other organization. Its official song is "If Ever I Cease to Love", a quirky tune from the 1870s musical "Bluebeard". This was adopted because the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia had a fondness for the actress who sang the song in the musical, which was playing in New Orleans at the time of the first Rex parade in 1872. It has stuck around since then and is played often during Carnival.
Rex has been incorrectly categorized as a "Super Krewe;" these are parades such as Bacchus, Endymion, and Orpheus that employ cutting edge technology such as fiber-optic lighting to create floats sometimes large enough to carry hundreds of riders. Rex, by comparison, still assembles floats using techniques that have spanned generations, entirely by hand. Contrary to popular belief, Rex floats are not built over Civil War-era cotton wagons; the truth, as often is the case, is less glamorous. All Rex floats are built on wagons formerly employed by the City of New Orleans to collect refuse in the late 19th century.
The theme for each year's parade is decided more than a year in advance, and as soon as the parade is over on Mardi Gras Day, float artists begin work on the next year's parade. It takes thousands of man hours to create an entirely new parade, and it is for this reason, as well as the organization's commitment to its history and traditions, that many consider the Rex parade to be the highlight and most beautiful sight of New Orleans carnival.
Read more about this topic: Rex Parade
Famous quotes containing the word parade:
“With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eyes is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves.”
—Adam Smith (1723–1790)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“We are becoming like cats, slyly parasitic, enjoying an indifferent domesticity. Nice and snug in “the social” our historic passions have withdrawn into the glow of an artificial cosiness, and our half-closed eyes now seek little other than the peaceful parade of television pictures.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)