Confronting The Shadow Self at Theatre Bizarre
Photos and Essay created for Playground Detroit
A group of costumed revelers gather around a stuffed white goat. Candle wax drips off the table onto the floor as a figure — scratch that — an apparition rises, donning a black dunce cap as it croaks, “Hail the Call, Hail the Hunt, HAIIIIIIL ZOMBO!”
The scene is one of the quieter moments that took place on Saturday, at Theatre Bizarre, the largest masquerade party in the country, perhaps the world. The masquerade, which takes place in the Masonic Temple of Detroit, the largest building of its kind is a true a culmination of the occult; including carnival sideshows, burlesque, sword eaters, fire twirlers, skin suspension acts and rumor has it, even a secret sex dungeon… Theatre Bizarre is a participatory theatrical event of grand scale.
