Frankenstein’s Monster is alive at this year’s Village Halloween Parade.
It’s been 200 years since Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” debuted and warned society of the dangers of toying with Mother Nature, but on Halloween night, creation will be celebrated.
This year’s parade theme will encourage New Yorkers to get creative and give into the urge to alter the natural, according to Jeanne Fleming, the artistic and producing director of the parade.
The theme, “A Cabinet of Curiosities, an Imaginary Menagerie,” stems from the idea of Frankenstein’s Monster, and that people will recreate themselves as imaginary beings for the night, she said.
“The hope is that people create crazy things,” she said in an interview. “It’s really about the individual imagination. You can make it up.”
Large puppets always lead the parade, and this year’s will literally turn heads. Each one will be made up of large, square pieces with different body parts on them. On cue, each block will spin every 10 minutes to make a new creature with mixed up parts. The frames can change to make as many as 4,800 different images, Fleming said.
“We want everyone to experience the wonder of transformation,” she added. “By the end of the parade you actually are a mermaid because that’s the way everybody’s has been treating you. It’s a big ‘yes’ to everybody to come as you wish you were or what you’d like to be.”
The parade starts at Spring Street at 7 p.m. and continues down Sixth Avenue to 16th Street, ending at 11 p.m.
Those walking in the parade are asked to show up at Canal Street and Sixth Avenue between 6:30 and 9 p.m. Fleming encouraged parade marchers to interact with the crowd: “Play with the audience,” she said. “Look at the crowd because it will create an atmosphere of play.”
To make the night memorable, here’s more of what you should look out for:
