Ghosts and ghouls spook Oregon Hill

Michael Todd
Assistant Spectrum Editor

The 7th Annual Oregon Hill Halloween Parade was small but enthusiastic Wednesday night.

The parade began its New Orleans style funeral march at 7 p.m. on Wednesday evening, continuing through Oregon Hill down North Laurel Street from its starting point in Monroe Park.

Organized by the All Saints Theater Company, the Halloween Parade, which is open to all Richmond residents, is one of the company’s events that aim to keep history alive through art, puppetry and theater. With a majority of the parade’s attendees in costumes and yielding homemade banners and puppets, made sure to encompass all goals.

Headed by a band of drums and various other instruments, the parade was organized in segments, with signs encouraging participants to “find your tribe.”

Following parade sections included various attendees waving homemade flags and banners, one of which proclaimed, “It won’t be the witches that are burning this time.”

A section of human-sized ghost and skeleton puppets overlooked the crowd, displayed at the end of poles held by paraders of various costumes. Some puppets were so large, and with movable limbs, that they took multiple parade participants to operate.

Dogs paraded alongside their owners, who were dressed as anything from surgeons to ghouls. A “clan” of paraders dressed as unicorns, with giant paper-mache heads, stampeded with the parade, followed closely by the parade’s tail, a make-shift pirate ship towed by a truck.

For VCU student Rachel Ludwig, the Oregon Hill Parade is but one more reason for the junior sculpture major to go all-out for her favorite holiday of the year.

Ludwig first participated in the 2010 parade, when she was a freshman in the Art Foundations program, marching as part of a functional sculpture created in one of her project classes. Project classes are abbreviated studio classes that are meant to give AFO students a preview into potential majors of their interest.

Taught by professor Johnston Foster, Ludwig’s sculpture project class created a giant cardboard dragon that was separated into different body segments. The students, each under a different body segment, then marched together in the parade, giving the dragon an illusion of life and movement.

Ludwig did not attend the previous year’s parade due to inclement weather. While this is not Ludwig’s first time actually marching in the parade, it is, in a sense, her first time seeing it.

“I actually didn’t see any of the parade (freshman year) because I was underneath the dragon’s butt the entire time,” Ludwig said of the experience.

With this year’s Halloween occurring in the middle of the week, many students are taking full advantage of the weekends both before and after much loved holiday in order to fully celebrate.

Besides the expected slew of parties, the weeklong event provides the perfect excuse for an holiday enthusiasts to execute an entire collection of costumes.

Ludwig’s parade costume this year, “glow in the dark,” is but the third in an unfinished series the sculpture major has planned for this year’s unofficial weeklong Halloween celebration, with more to come this weekend. Her prior costumes included a 90’s goth girl and a zombie groupie, for no particular band.

While Ludwig has yet to decide how many more costumes she’ll use this year. she has been saving at least one additional guise for the holiday’s final weekend.

“The (costume that) I’m most excited for is Paula Dean,” Ludwig said. “I’ve been practicing (her) voice. Hopefully it lives up to (her) standards.”

this year, she has been saving at least one additional guise for the holiday’s final weekend.

“The (costume that) I’m most excited for is Paula Dean,” said Ludwig. “I’ve been practicing (her) voice. Hopefully it lives up to standards.”