If you’re not getting excited for Capital Pride, you must not have read this week’s Metro Weekly, which includes a cover interview with Icona Pop. The Swedish duo of redhead Caroline Hjelt and black-haired Aino Jawo will no doubt fire up the crowd performing current Billboard Top 10 hit “I Love It.” As discussed in the feature, the song has become a sensation in large part because of a pivotal scene in the HBO series Girls.
Certainly, there will be more love on hand than the duo got on a recent trip to the land of amore. “We went to Italy a couple of months ago, just for fun,” Hjelt shares. “We were just walking around with all of our ‘Icona Pop’ bags. People thought we were pretty cocky and weird.” No wonder: “Icona Pop” means “pop icon” in Italian. During a 30-minute interview the ladies came across as both sweet and smart, and also confident and ambitious — but those are hardly the same things as cocky and weird.
Among Icona Pop’s ambitions, or at least dreams, expressed to Metro Weekly: Collaborations with Prince, Tina Turner, Patti Smith and Asap Rocky. None of those artists, as far as we know, will appear on the duo’s debut album, due out later this year. “We can’t really tell you which people we’re [working with now]. We don’t want to jinx it,” says Jawo. “But we have some tricks up our sleeves.”
More immediately, Hjelt and Jawo are looking forward to a late summer headlining tourthrough North America — though no date in D.C., at least not yet — during which they’ll be able to play longer sets than on previous gigs opening for Marina and the Diamonds and Passion Pit.
But first up, after a performance at Governors Ball this Saturday, June 8, in New York, is the Capital Pride Festival. Hjelt says, “we’re very honored.”
“We’re expecting a lot of dancing, good movements,” adds Jawo. “And love.”
In a tense House hearing, a pair of congressional Democrats blasted Pentagon officials for stripping gay rights icon Harvey Milk’s name from a Navy ship, accusing the military of erasing LGBTQ history. U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.), an out gay Democrat, directly confronted Navy Secretary John Phelan over the decision during the June 11 Armed Services Committee meeting.
"I just wanted to take a moment to talk about a veteran who served on a submarine as a diving officer during the Korean War," Sorensen said, referring to Milk's biography before actually naming him.
"This kind of theater is what I live for," says Bruce Randolph Nelson. "High comedy, high camp, ridiculous, outrageous, the more the better."
Donning an assortment of wigs and frocks and false teeth to perform multiple roles, Nelson is currently starring alongside Zack Powell in Everyman Theatre's vigorous and hilarious production of Charles Ludlam's quick-change horror spoof The Mystery of Irma Vep. He starred in Everyman's first go at the play, a hit 2009 production directed by Ludlam's partner, Everett Quinton.
The following are select events during the WorldPride celebration.
Illustrations by Scott G. Brooks
Welcome Center
Now to June 8
737 7th St. NW
www.worldpridedc.org
The Welcome Center is the WorldPride 2025 community hub where you can drop in for information about anything and everything related to WorldPride 2025 and Washington DC. Plus, there are phone charging stations, a Fabric of Freedom lounge area, official WorldPride 2025 merchandise for sale, and a fantastic, curated art exhibit for all to enjoy.
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