Plezi Rara drums rabòday through Manhattan at the 53rd Village Halloween Parade

Plezi Rara, a Brooklyn-based rara band, played rabòday along Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village during New York City's 53rd annual Village Halloween Parade on Saturday, Oct. 31. Organizers estimated that two million people attended. Spectators lined the avenue from Spring Street to 15th Street as the band's drums and horns carried the energy of Carnival on Haiti's Champs de Mars into Manhattan.

A band led by Maestro Peter

Maestro Peter led the group. He grew up in Belair and moved to Brooklyn at 15. In New York he came to rara through Djarara, a long-established rara band that plays in Prospect Park, and he joined it shortly afterward.

Rara is known in the Haitian community for raw energy and minimal instrumentation. Its music is built on powerful drum rhythms, usually opening with fierce snare drum rolls. Giant furry creatures walked with the procession, swaying their hips and sidestepping to the beat.

Getting to the route

Band members met near Parkside and Ocean avenues in Brooklyn and rode the subway to Canal Street. From there they threaded through crowded streets to the start of the parade, where they joined other players. Rabòday ran through the whole performance on the route and carried on as the musicians headed back toward the subway.

Music chosen for the message

Maestro Peter said the band picks its music according to the message it wants to send and the setting where it plays. "When we go out and play, we play music," he said. "When we want to send a message, e we only play one song; with that one song, we go around the city with it. We play what goes with the context."

This year's parade carried the theme "Body and Soul," which celebrates human connection, movement and physical presence in contrast to an increasingly digital world. Peter said he hopes the band will come back to the parade in the future.