Village Halloween Parade: Let the Puppets Wild
Village Halloween Parade at The Westbeth ‘74 via Village Preservation
“It was a hopeful time. In the aftermath of the 1960s, the community of artists and activists optimistically still believed that their individual and collective actions would definitively create a better world…” Jill Lyne beautifully captured in her 2015 article and photo essay for Vanity Fair, "It was an era of relative innocence, of carefreeness: before AIDS, 9/11, Katrina, Sandy, Newtown. We thought these 'good times' might last forever."
Photos by Jill Lyne via Vanity Fair
She was an artist and single mother raising her daughter in the village in the early 70s. And she was there when, in a neighborhood renowned at the time for its bohemian spirit, the Villag Halloween Parade came to life in 1973, thanks to the imaginative vision of mask maker and puppeteer Ralph Lee. This iconic event found its roots in Westbeth, an affordable artists' residency established in 1970, where Lee resided for many decades to come. The spirit of puppetry was infused into its very essence, transforming the parade into a mesmerizing display of life-sized and alive puppetry.
As the years passed, the familial neighborhood walk metamorphosized into a creative extravaganza that grew under the production of local theater organizations and non-profits, expanding its reach throughout Greenwich Village. Musicians from diverse backgrounds, such as samba, Dixieland, African, and steel bands, brought a symphony of sounds to the parade's ever-evolving landscape. I imagine as Halloween spirited as Halloween does (and as New York spirited the way New York does) the puppetry and masks of Lee’s creative practice took on that embodied display of mystery, of shadow selves, and expression of truth beyond the ‘real’ or ‘practical.’
For decades, the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade was celebrated as a wild, wacky window into art amidst the vibrant bohemia of the Village. In 1975, Ralph Lee's contribution to this magnificent event earned him an Obie award from the Village Voice.
New York Times 1976 via Village preservation
New York Times 1979 via Village Preservation
Jill Lyne, just one of those creatives who witnessed the parade's infancy, goes on to recount, "a visceral memory of that first Halloween Parade… It was a crisp, chilly autumn evening. As everyone gathered expectantly in the Westbeth courtyard, there was a sensory excitement. A sense of creative freedom prevailed, and an unexpected enormous turnout from the community and their friends arrived. There were artists, families, drag queens, and proud members of the L.G.B.T. community."
50 years later, what’s left in its place is not quite the same. Six years ago in a crushing crowd under, the overwhelm of my mixed feelings at my first GV Halloween parade, I knew that to be true. Time will change some- if not all- beautiful things. There are some eras of New York we will never see in this lifetime. But I can certainly see the beauty in the sheer number of people who show up to honor its spirit. And maybe it’s its own sort of beautiful to witness how, 50 years later, the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade has held a special place in NYC’s heart.
"The Halloween Parade plays an important part in the life of the City… Its generous spirit has nurtured hundreds of thousands of people who reach into their imaginations and take themselves physically out into public to perform and to celebrate,” The Village Halloween parade outlines in its mission statement, “We believe public events of this sort give people the opportunity to claim the open spaces of their City for purposes other than work; to inhabit them with a sense of freedom and spontaneity; to play, thus renew their relationship to the environment."
via 6sqft
Not only does this year mark the 50th anniversary of the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, but it also serves as an ode to its creator, Ralph Lee, who sadly passed away in May. The theme for this special occasion is "Upsidedown/Insideout," designed to acknowledge "the mounting disorientation so many of us feel these days – the realization that the promise of a return 'back to normal' has only revealed that whatever notion of normal we clung to may be gone forever, irrevocably altered in ways both subtle and substantial. We are left floating, inverted, turned about, flipped around like shards of a mirror exploding in slow motion."
It’s a mix of things. A loss of something, a story of something, and a testament to how collective energy can expand boundaries, making space for the wild, wacky and unbound. Halloween and New York City have both been a breeding ground for that. If we tap in and turn our insides out, if the spirits rise and we gently open up to the pretty and true masks of people around us, what could happen? What spells could we cast? Portals could we open?
It’s all in there: the Halloween story of the parade’s journey through a half-century and obsession left to serve its legacy.
