Theme 2026
Body & Soul
Theme Statement to follow 9/1/26
The 2025 Theme WAS
It's a Potluck!
When we do it together and care for one another, there is enough for everyone!
Come on in! The table is set!
We saved you a seat.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peas
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one....
It’s rough out there. People are divided; othering is rampant; online echo-chambers amplify the loudest, angriest voices. Does nothing still connect us? Can we still imagine common ground? Maybe it’s time to just sit down and break some bread together.
One can pinpoint the birth of civilization to the moment we gathered to share food around a precarious, precious fire. Conflicts melt away when the simple act of passing a bowl from one hand to the next links us together and embodies what makes us human — to welcome the outsider, to spread abundance, to love one another or die.
At its roots, Halloween is a Harvest feast, a celebration of abundance that defies the scarcity of winter.
So, this year, we fling open our door to strangers one and all, to share in a moveable feast
(and nowhere will you find stranger dinner guests than at the Halloween Parade).
A Potluck becomes a Collective Feast…
for the eyes and the spirit!
For our part, Official Parade Puppeteers, Processional Arts Workshop will imagine All the People and present a messy assemblage of fractious, frivolous, and feisty puppet strangers of every imaginable stripe, jostling their way up Sixth Avenue. As pop-up tables unfold and a flotilla of food descends out of nowhere, we will bridge the divide from East to West with a welcoming feast, enjoining the crowds to partake together for a precarious but precious shared moment.
The Parade IS the Feast!
What imagined delights will YOU bring – or become –
to share at the potluck?
Let's make enough for all.
What memorable meals – from film, literature, art – will you bring to the table? From comfort foods to exotic fare, from barbecue to boba pearls, from paper to porcelain, how will you dispel the myth of scarcity with a vision of abundance? Together we will serve up a feast that will fill up the eyes and nourish the spirit of ALL THE PEOPLE!
So, don’t be a stranger….
YOU are the INGREDIENTS, the PLATE, MEAL , DESSERT, a FRUIT, the HOST!
Bring out the tastiest version of yourself and dish it up 6th Avenue.
We hope you'll join us on Halloween night …
... and the world will live as one.
— Jeanne Fleming Artistic and Producing Director
— Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles,
Processional Arts Workshop
