Hundreds of living dead dance through Hackney’s streets

See photos of the costumes and capers at Saturday’s parade

Hundreds of fiends, fools and festival-goers danced until they dropped at the fifth annual March of the Dead in Hackney this weekend.

Two giant puppets led about 700 people disguised as anything from skeletons and vampires to boar-headed brides and flesh-eating clowns in a procession from Hoxton Square along Shoreditch High Street and Kingsland Road on Saturday evening (October 30).

This year’s March of the Dead, celebrating both Halloween and Mexico’s Day of the Dead, was inspired by the medieval tradition of the ‘dance macabre’ and ended with a ghastly dance-off in Gillett Square in Dalston.

“It was our most ambitious parade and, considering our budget is about zero, we managed to pull off a massive event. I feel like it was a real success,” said Will Bock of organisers StrangeWorks.

“What makes it different to other carnivals and street parades is that it really involves the public. We want the parade to be an umbrella for lots of community groups and different organisations to try things out. It is an open platform for creativity that links artists with the local community.”

The parade was followed by a fundraising clubnight at Passing Clouds in Richmond Road, Dalston, to support StangeWorks, a community theatre company based in Stoke Newington International Airport in Leswin Road, Stoke Newington.

For more information, go to www.strangeworks.org or email strangeworks@gmail.com.