“Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty — not destroy it!”
Yuri Gagarin
Humans have achieved a lot in the last few millennia. The mighty Ancient Egyptians constructed the pyramids. The Chinese invented (and Gutenberg popularized) the printing press. Obama actually managed to pass a health care reform bill in the US.
But few feats match the challenge of sending human beings off our planet and into space. The first human in the rarefied class of “spacegoer” was Yuri Gargarin, the Soviet cosmonaut who on April 12, 1961 traveled into space and orbited our planet aboard the Vostok 1.
And for the first time, Winnipeg is joining in a worldwide party to celebrate this human achievement. On Yuri’s Night, “people from all over the world come together to celebrate humankind’s first flight into space and shape our future as a species.”
Who exactly is bringing “The World Space Party” to Winnipeg? Quite unsurprisingly, Eve “DJ Beekeeni/Vav Jungle” Rice and some of her friends, including the Shake (DJs Lotek and Manalogue), DJ Cyclist and DJ King Kobra.
Return to the science education haunt of your youth, the Planetarium, now licensed for the occasion (i.e. this time you’ll be drinking something stronger than a juice box). Wear a space-themed costume. Check out a science exhibit or video installation. Dance your ass into outer space.
“Winnipeg is now charted on the interplanetary map as ‘The Dance Capital of the Milky Way,” says Rice. Make it happen, astronauts!