New York's Village Halloween Parade is a quintessentially urban event: about 80,000 fantastically costumed revelers pouring up Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, their marching band music and manic howls bouncing off buildings as more than a million spectators push in for a glimpse.
For 21 years and counting, Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles of Processional Arts Workshop have chosen the parade's theme and, with the help of volunteers, have built dozens of oversized puppets in a rustic barn upstate in order to bring it to life.
This year's theme is, "Wild Thing."
The look of the creatures are a mash-up of the Maurice Sendak children's book and pagan rites from Europe. But that doesn't quite do justice to the kinetic performance art that typically emerges from the couple's former cattle barn in the Hudson Valley town of Red Hook. You have to see it.
Click the player to hear Kahn's musings on how once the madding crowds infuse these creatures with what could be called "Halloween consciousness," things don't always go as planned.
The Halloween Parade kicks off at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 31 from Sixth Avenue and Spring Street in Manhattan.
