by Carla Caruso

Do you fancy the idea of dressing up like a monster for the night and parading through your Park Lands?

Daniel Havey is behind a new Nature Festival event being staged at Mirnu Wirra / Golden Wattle Park (Park 21W) on Sunday, October 15, 2023.

Dubbed the Dancing Monsters house-warning party, Daniel is hoping that the event will help to encourage people outdoors – and to paint monsters in a better light.

“If we look at traditions like Halloween, and I’m going back to the Irish tradition rather than the American one, people would put masks on and be kind of terrifying, but they were doing that to protect their communities from spirits at the time,” Daniel says.

“And if you look at the gargoyle and the church, there are various theories, but one is that it’s got this fearsome appearance because it’s protecting the church.”

In this day and age, however, Daniel says that we shouldn’t fear the monsters outside so much as the domestication “trapping” us indoors.

“Anxiety can develop about going outside when we become too enmeshed in our own comfortable, domestic environment, and that can make us feel like there are monsters outside,” Daniel says.

“I’m interested in the way in which the domestication has distanced us from feeling like we’re part of nature … Houses are great, they’re so comfortable, I’m in one right now [talking to you].

“And I have this funny thing, when I’m in a house, that it makes me sort of reticent about going outside, even though going outside actually makes me feel good.

“[House-warning] is a play on ‘housewarming’, with the idea being that actually we need to connect with our ‘home’ outside the house as well.”

The city event will kick off at the Adelaide Lutheran Sports Club, off Goodwood Road, from 6.30pm and go for about two hours. It’s open to all ages and free to attend. (Register here.)

Participants will parade across the park, then dance to “protect” it. Though, Daniel says it won’t be like an outdoor rave or the former Adelaide Zombie Walk, with the event even falling into silence at some stage.

“We’re doing it at dusk, and so, that’s the transition time. Some [species] will be going to sleep and some things will be waking up or beginning their routines. But certainly, dusk in a parkland setting, it seems a better fit to be quiet and to listen.”

Fairy lights will help illuminate the way at the parade. However, it won’t be suitable for people with mobility issues, unfortunately.

Parade-goers are encouraged to wear a mask or dress in a way that reflects the park or monsters that might help frighten off threats to it. Daniel’s planning on making a costume out of green chiffon and golden wattle flowers.

While he’s staged similar parades in Port Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills before, he says Park 21 West is a particularly “significant place” for him. He used to walk through it daily when working in community mental health in Goodwood for eight years.

“I feel quite connected to that Park, and so, I was really happy that the government listened to the voice of the people [in vetoing a mounted police unit there this year]. That was a really interesting moment.

“I was really depressed at the thought of [the government] not having the capacity really, or the interest perhaps, in taking in what benefit that park had to, well, itself … Often things are measured in terms of what benefit they are in human utility.

“But, in some ways, it went beyond that. And that was because the people that protested, and that had been doing [revegetation] work in that park for a long time, made a really good case.”

About 70 people are expected to attend this month’s Dancing Monsters event. Afterwards, you are welcome to stay on for a drink at the sports club too.