Jade Esteban Estrada doesn't need a guidebook when he performs at

lesbian and gay Pride festivals. By public record, he has appeared in 125 such events in the last three years alone, including several outside the United States. 

     But when he brings his high-energy Latin pop program to Allentown at noon Sunday to perform at the 10th Annual Pride of Lehigh Valley 2003 Festival, he will do essentially the same show he would before other types of audiences. 

     Whether he is performing in English to for 15,000 lesbians in Jacksonville, Florida, or in Spanish for Univision's "Sabado Gigante," the most watched Spanish-language program in North America, his show remains mostly the same. "At the end of the day, people just love music," says Estrada, 28.

     Although his performance at the Allentown Pride Festival will involve singing and dancing, Estrada also has directed plays and appeared in one-man stage shows.

     He has toured the world extensively, both as a singer-dancer and an actor, having performed in England, Germany and Japan for extended periods, so much that he considers German, not Spanish, his second language. He also speaks Japanese, a benefit of having spent a year in that country, as well as French. 

      "At one point, I wanted to be a linguist," says Estrada in perfect, rapid-fire New York English. "I love communications."

     Estrada may be best known for his debut recording, "Angel," released on his own record label, Vicarious Records. The eight-song collection, in both English and Spanish, incorporates several musical styles, including salsa, merengue, calypso and reggae. Snippets of his Latin pop songs have appeared on the police drama, "The Shield."

     One tune from "Angel," the upbeat, English version of "Bella Morena," also appears on "Being Out Rocks" (Centaur), a fundraiser for a human rights project that also includes songs by Sarah McLachlan, k.d.lang and Bob Mould, among others.

     Estrada, who is openly gay, "came out" in 1999.

     "I was doing so many (Pride festivals) that it was hard to stay in the closet," Estrada says. "There is such a"--and here his usually upbeat voice falters slightly as he searches for the right word --"pride in being true to yourself."

     His sexual orientation has never been a problem, Estrada says even when he performs in Spanish before Latino audiences, who, he says tend to be a conservative group oriented to church and family. 

     "It's a funny thing, but in all but a few exceptions, the Latino press never writes about my personal life," Estrada says. Latin people are very protective of one another and very protective of their performers and their artists."

     Estrada, who enjoys telling stories, illustrates his point: Recently he was performing before a predominantly Spanish-speaking audience in San Diego as part of a festival organized by actor Edward James Olmos.

     "I was wearing these platform boots, like the rock band KISS. And usually I work with a cordless microphone, but in this case I had  a corded mic. I move around a lot on stage, and I like to interact with the audience, so usually corded mikes are death for me. But I was OK. I said I would use it.

     "Anyway, I did this spin in the boots and fell. I 'm always the first to laugh at myself--you can't take yourself too seriously--but I noticed that everyone in the audience had chosen too to acknowledge that I fell. It was as if they we saying, 'OK, get back on your feet. We won't notice.'"

     Born in San Antonio, Estrada is a son of a U.S. military officer father and a playwright mother. His first name, Jade, was his mother's idea, Estrada says. "She was a flower child," he says with a laugh. 

     His father wanted Jade to join the Army and become an officer, and Estrada believes he would have been a good one, had he chose that path.

     But since he was a young man, Estrada had a love for performing. As a teen, Estrada won a scholarship to New York's American Musical and Dramatic Academy, and never looked back. When he is not touring, he splits his time between homes in New York City and Los Angeles. 

     After his Allentown show, Estrada will travel back to New York, where he is scheduled to perform at the kick-off event of a week-long New York City Pride Rally and StageFest. Estrada then travels to Switzerland , before returning again to New York where he will help close the city's Pride festival.

©2003 Allentown Morning Call