This past weekend, the annual Halloween dance brought students from across campus together. Hosted by Flagstaff and Pine Knoll, students wore various costumes, ranging from Winnie the Pooh to Pennywise from ‘It’.
1. Ray Shoemaker ’20
“I decided to rock a vintage High School Kobe Bryant jersey with a Jason mask. On the court, Kobe Bryant was a killer, and combining the element of the Jason mask with the jersey just puts an emphasis on the killer aspect. I feel like this costume encompasses my confident attitude.
“My favorite part was just being able to dance with my friends during the dance. There were no worries. No college apps. No tests. No homework. Nothing on my mind, and this just made my night wonderful. All of my problems seemed to disappear.”
2. Mary Stuart Kerrigan ’22
“I’m in a group costume with ‘Winnie the Pooh’ characters, and I’m Tigger… All my friends helped paint orange and black stripes on me and it all came together really well; I’m super excited about it. When we were painting the stripes on, we wanted to add another dimension to it. We found some glitter and decided to throw it on. [a]
3. Sonia Marnoto ’22
“My friends always love to get ready before dances. It’s always so fun to pick out our costumes together, and I came as [part of] a group. We love coming here and having a good time together. We are not great dancers but we like to have fun and spend time together…[b] We went back and forth between a ton of ideas but eventually decided on the ‘Wizard of Oz’ because we had a lot of people who wanted to do it, and we thought it would be fun. We also really like the idea of doing ideas. We had some crazy ideas, such as princesses, ‘Winnie the Pooh’, ‘Mario Kart’, and ‘Phineas and Ferb’ characters.” [c]
4. Christine Michael ’22
“My friends and I went together as Bratz dolls. I was Sasha, and we came up with it because I knew I wanted to coordinate a costume with my roommate, and we didn’t want to dress up as something generic. That’s why we thought, ‘Why not Bratz?’ It’s cute and not too hard or overdone. In the end, my costume was a black mini dress I bought from Bobbles & Lace with tiny hooks in the front. I also bought an orange sweatshirt from Forever 21 and cropped it. Finally, I bought a bunch of white socks with stripes and the top and wore them with my white Air Force 1st because the costume is supposed to have gogo boots but I don’t own a pair. The costume didn’t come out exactly as we wanted for the group because of some bad online shopping decisions but I’m still pretty proud of us.
“I wanted to go to the dance because they’re a great opportunity to have fun with your friends. At my old school, the dances were too empty to really be fun but here it’s always packed, so just being a part of the huge mob of people jumping up and down is exhilarating, and is one of my favorite feelings. I just feel so connected to everyone and the music, except for when the DJ makes some questionable music choices, such as playing four Halsey songs in a row. Dances are always a great opportunity to get ready with friends, have fun, take cute pictures, and dance until you feel sore all over.
5. Memo Canales ’21
“My actual costume got delayed from Amazon, so this is just a onesie I had lying around; I also wore it for Halloween last year. It was my mom who chose it for me. We were shopping and it was the only thing we could find. I also love scary stuff, and I feel like ever since I was young, I’ve loved Halloween. I wanted to wear something scary but comical at the same time to make people laugh. I actually wanted to dress up as a clown from It, but all the costumes I found were going to arrive in November. I had to choose something more common like a skeleton.
“My favorite part about the costume was it was comfortable, halloween-themed, and childish. People don’t usually see me in my pajamas, especially a onesie, so it was something special for a special night.
“I actually bought [the costume] last year during parents weekend. I had dropped the tradition of dressing up for Halloween because when you’re like 12 or 13, you feel like you’re too cool for Halloween, but honestly, at this point it has become cool and fun again. Also, Andover is a place full of weird people, in a good way, so showing off your quirky side doesn’t stand out as much.”
“My original idea for this year’s costume was to be an inflatable gorilla. Unfortunately, I passed the deadline for one day shipping so my costume arrived on Saturday, and, since GW is closed, I was not able to get it. I thought about what I could wear to the dance and Abbotween, and I remembered I had the onesie and I thought it would be fun to wear it. It actually came with a mask, but it isn’t in the picture because it was kind of weird and I wanted people to at least know who I was.
6. Emily Warren ’21
“My friends and I were watching a tv show called ‘Money Heist’, and we decided we would dress up as the different characters. It’s a very intense tv show with lots of cliff hangers so my friends and I really enjoyed it. There were also many different characters involved, so we decided it would be a perfect idea for a group costume. I dressed up with four other friends, and four of us were bank robbers and one person represented the money. We dressed up as Tokyo, Nairobi, Berlin, and Rio, and my favourite part was probably planning the outfits out and seeing it all come together. The masks were the best part because no one could differentiate us from each other.