While Celtic people once donned spooky masks to, according to their belief, avoid hauntings from evil spirits walking the Earth, dressing up at Halloween time has become more of an activity for fun than anything.
Originally known as All Hallows Eve, Halloween began as a time to ward off ghosts, according to a blog entry in the National Library of Congress.
Today, people celebrate Halloween because it is fun, said Jennifer Saxton-Rodriguez, a UTRGV Theatre professor.
“How we think about Halloween really started in the … early 1900s,” Saxton-Rodriguez said.
She said dressing up in costume for Halloween is different from doing so for theatre and performance, but that it is rewarding.
“If you dress up as somebody that other people know, you get the joy of people affirming that you’ve done a good job by recognizing it, and they get the pleasure of being smart and recognizing it,” Saxton-Rodriguez said. “People love to play, and they love dressing up. There’s something really wonderful about it.”
She said wearing costumes for Halloween is a way people express themselves.
“You don’t have to spend a lot of money,” Saxton-Rodriguez said. “It can be creative. And no matter what … the world won’t end if the costume doesn’t work out. Half the time, the costumes you put together yourself are a lot more interesting and clever than the ones you can buy in the store.
Theatre junior Sunny Saxton, an SFX makeup artist, costumer and Saxton-Rodriguez’s daughter, said costume and make-pretend is fun.
“I think it’s fun to pretend to be somebody else for a little while, you know?” Saxton said. “You know, like, you get to … don a whole new personality. … It suspends your belief for a while.”
She said SFX makeup is a great way to simulate real situations.
“You slap on some scar wax and some fake blood and you’re a car crash victim,” Saxton said. “You know, it’s so interesting. … SFX is like a whole, you know, umbrella term for, like, anything that … alters a person’s, you know, state of being. … You can turn someone old or you can make someone, you know, a zombie.”
She said students who are interested in makeup and costume should take a makeup class or swing by the costume shop on campus.
“There’s a makeup class in the Theatre Department that’s really good,” Saxton said. “And in that class, you learn about mostly makeup and, like, you know, how to put a face on, you know. … We talk about, like, SFX and and, like, gore and old age and all of that stuff. So, I think it’s a really good starting place.”
Students can access the costume shop, which has “industrial-grade sewing equipment” as well as “a computer lab with production space within the Library Media Center,” according to the UTRGV Theatre Department website.
“There’s so many new faces and everybody’s brand-new,” Saxton said about visitors to the costume shop. “Like, it’s not like everybody knows what they’re doing automatically. And I think that’s really cool. … No one even knows how to thread a hand-sewing needle, you know, and everybody gets to start from scratch.”
