The real world hasn’t been kind to women in 2017 — so this year’s Halloween parade will be dedicated to them.
The 44th edition of the Village Halloween Parade will be led by Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Anjelica, whose idea for a float dedicated to women won her the coveted role of grand marshal.
“It’s such a big moment in time right now when women need to stick together, almost like in a coven sense where we all come together and are magical with each other and make magical things happen,” says the Williamsburg resident.
And it’s quite the coven of powerful women who’s been assembled to lead the annual procession. The Village parade traditionally chooses an emerging artist to lead it — Anjelica has been performing since age 6 and will release her first album in the coming year — and will be joined on her float by DJ Olivia Dope, Instagram’s mystic diva @thehoodwitch (aka Bri Luna), and fashion PR maven Kelly Cutrone.
From the 2016 Village Halloween Parade, Super Mario World with ladies — think about it, Nintendo. Credit: Getty Images
Besides the opportunity to perform in front of hundreds of thousands of spectactors along the route — she’ll be singing for the entire two-hour parade — Anjelica also relished the creative opportunity of designing her own float.
It’s the first New Orleans-style float in the parade’s history, designed by Alexei Kazantsev. “He’s from New Orleans and is a really amazing artist,” she says. “He’s never made a float before — he’s usually a sculpture artist, he makes these beautiful, angelic, religious figures for churches all around the world.”
The non-denominational float’s theme is Spiritual Warriors, a calling she lives by: “My name, Anjelica, was something given to me during an experience I had in deep meditation in Joshua Tree,” she explains. “The divine cosmic mother came to me and told that my name was to be Anjelica and I had to do certain things in order to be able to have this name and own this name.”
Instead of wearing a costume, Anjelica describes her outfit as “stripping down to who I really am.” For her, and the women she’s celebrating with, Halloween is not an opportunity to be someone else — it’s a chance to be their authentic self.
“I really hope to inspire women especially, but everyone to be themselves and to be seen,” she says. “This is a really big coming out moment for me, and I think that’s everyone’s struggle: allowing themselves to be seen as who they are and not worrying about being judged for being a little weird.
“Because I’m definitely weird, and I’m going to own that.”
