You choose! Options for full members
As a full member, you select and provide your own costume and decide where you want to be. You can stick with the same thing every year or change it up. Contact the leader in your section to coordinate and get in the loop on what others are doing. We call our sections “battalions,” and they tell the story of Joan’s life starting with her birthday, childhood in Domrémy, call from her Voices, her life as a military leader in Knights, the grateful people of the city of Orléans, Charles’ coronation (royalty section), Joan’s trial (Skinz-n-Bonez), her death by fire (Flaming Heretics), the second trial to restore her name (Restoration/Innocence), Sainthood, and finally the Legacy battalion. Choose where you want to be and plan an appropriate costume for that section, or choose what you’d like to wear and find a place that costume makes sense.
Here’s the costume guide. The rest of this newsletter is suggestions and options, roughly in priority order for roles we need filled for 2025 (not parade order).
Legacy Battalion
The newest section of our parade and also the finale of the parade, created in 2023, is the only section of the parade that is not set in medieval times or involve medieval costumes. Instead, it celebrates people inspired by Joan. So far it includes our Women Warriors (actual female veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces), Sistahs Changing Lives (three New Orleans-area Catholic women who changed the lives of African-Americans in New Orleans and founded some of our many Catholic schools — St. Katharine Drexel, Henriette Delille, and Thea Bowman), and the Amazon warriors cancer survivors benevolent society, as well as a golden Joanie on the Pony (human-size, on a horse trike). This year we’ll be adding Suffragists to this mix, and that group is open!
New for 2025: Giant Golden Joan processional puppet at the finale of the parade (Legacy)
A new statue-inspired lighted golden giant Joan will conclude the parade and will require 3 puppeteers (the head and torso built about 14 feet tall on a backpack, and one person on each side with poles supporting her hands. One hand will hold her banner (like the statue does), and the other hand will be outstretched blessing the crowd and can be waved over the crowd. In addition to the 3 puppeteers, we’ll need a few more to form a support team who can help assemble and shepherd the puppet on parade day. It would be wonderful if this team could be highly involved in the building of the puppet which will be happening this fall. Contact: Captain Amanda, 504-940-4976. The team could be a mix of full members and foot soldiers, and having a team is essential to moving forward with this puppet.
New for 2025: Suffragists (Legacy Battalion)
The women’s suffrage movement held Joan of Arc as their symbol in their battle for the right to vote. Walk with us to pay tribute to their success! CONTACT Carol Lynch at clynch@cdly.org
Additional Legacy battalion characters:
We’re open to other ideas for the Legacy Battalion also. We’d like to add a Mark Twain character, as he was a big fan of Joan and said his book on Joan was his best work. In addition to being the patron saint of France and of soldiers, Joan is also the patron saint of prisoners, rape victims, and youth, and is often a symbol for transgender people as well.
Voices of Joan battalion
This section tells the story of Joan getting God’s marching orders, heard through the voices of three saints, each represented by a 12-foot prop: St. Michael with a cloud and rays of light, St. Catherine with the giant wheel, and St. Margaret with the dragon. The Voices section also celebrates the pomp and glory of the medieval high church, and full members in this section are costumed as richly ornamented clergy in attendance on the three saints, with each in a different colored robe with coordinated tabards with the three saint icons on them. We can help put this costume together for you. Voices always welcomes more clergy, monks and nuns, but we really need a “team St. Catherine” to be in charge of the giant wheel prop. Contact: Captain Amanda.
Voices full members in their rich clergy costumes, photo by Kim Welsh
Prop Lieutenants
We’re seeking people to really take charge of each of the major props — learn how the prop assembles and packs up, check batteries and tires and supervise any repairs or maintenance to get ready for the parade, take an interest in the artistic and structural direction of the prop, arrive early to the line-up to ensure the prop is in the right place and correctly assembled on parade day, and ensure the prop is properly collected and loaded on the props truck after the parade. Prop lieutenants could be full members or foot soldiers, but we do need continuity year-to-year. Full member prop lieutenants do not necessarily have to personally shepherd the prop during the parade — foot soldiers could still do the pushing, pulling or toting — but full members serving as prop lieutenants may find it fun or convenient to walk near their props in the parade and to choose their costumes, throws and parade location accordingly. Contact: Captain Amanda. Here’s a list of the prop lieutenants needed:
- Royalty battalion, Pedicabs (King and Queen) — this prop lieutenant would supervise any repairs of the pedicab throne canopies and the horse heads, greet the pedicabs when they arrive at the lineup, get the canopies and horse heads assembled on the pedicabs, and ensure the pedicabs get packed up and the costumes collected. As a full member, the pedicab props lieutenant would have the option of parading along with the royalty and would need to have a royal court-worthy medieval costume to do so.
- Voices battalion, St. Catherine (giant wheel) — while we do have a St. Catherine character, we really also need a wheel prop team to support her in getting the giant wheel ready to roll. She might even be open to passing on the starring role if there’s a new team. St. Catherine wears the dress of an upscale early medieval lady; her team can wear the Voices clergy costume.
- Knights Battalion, Gates of Orléans wall prop — We need someone to really take ownership of engineering this prop and making it work well. If a full member takes this role, they can costume as a knight and supervise the foot soldiers carrying the wall.
- Birthday Battalion (front of parade) — giant birthday cake prop. If a full member prop lieutenant wants to escort the prop, a jester costume would be appropriate.
- Saint Joan battalion, St. Joan statue and canopy prop — our praying Joan statue, which was blessed by the Cathedral in 2020, the 100th anniversary of Joan’s canonization. Foot soldiers carry this statue on a medieval-style litter and carry a processional canopy above it. We need someone to take custody of this statue during the line-up and supervise the team of foot soldiers carrying it. If a full member wants to walk with this prop, they could costume as a monk or nun. (Or, they could launch this prop and then return to their own section to parade.)
- Royaly battalion, young Maid of Honor Joan props — this prop lieutenant would collect and assemble the banners and spotlight that accompany our Maid of Honor as she rides on her real horse, security cording to surround the real horse, barding for the real horse from the props truck, greet the handlers of the real horse when they arrive at the line-up, supervise and coach the foot soldiers surrounding the Maid of Honor at the line-up. If a full member serves this role and wishes to walk with the Maid of Honor, a royal court-worthy costume would be appropriate.
- Legacy battalion, Golden Joan processional giant puppet (detailed above)
All krewe members are welcome to help make props! See our calendar for props workshop dates.
Flaming Heretic battalion
This is a group of full members surrounding full member Jen Ramos as she portrays the flaming Joan. Full members in this section can dress as part of the execution team or as medieval-masquerade-style flames. This group parades between Skinz-n-Bonez drum corps and the Muff-a-Lottas, and has new energy with artist leaders Jen Ramos and Max Bernardi. Contact: Jen Ramos.
Flaming heretics (photo by Kim Welsh)
Restoration battalion
The trial to clear Joan’s name 25 years after her death was a remarkable historical event documented in great detail. In several cathedrals in different regions of France, character witnesses from all walks of life testified about their memories of Joan, from childhood peasant friends to fellow soldiers to military leaders. Many characters appear in two places in the parade, representing their first involvement in Joan’s story and then again when they testified at the “rehabilitation” trial. Headed by creative team Terri Wilkinson and Judy Sheon, the Restoration battalion has been growing rapidly and features dozens of specific characters who testified, as well as the people of France demanding justice for Joan, the Notre Dame cathedral prop, the Orléans cathedral prop, and the bells that rung out to declare her innocence. The French Jeanne and the visiting delegation from sister city Orléans, France, also walk in this section accompanying the Orléans cathedral. Contact: Terri Wilkinson to find out specific characters needed.
Orléans cathedral prop, depicting the cathedral light show in celebration of the sister city relationship with New Orleans, photo by Kim Welsh
Knights battalion
The Knights battalion includes full members costumed knights, soldiers, cannoneers, and archers of all genders, as well as the flag corps, bagpipes and the confetti cannon prop. We have hand confetti cannons that cannoneers could use, and we’d like to form a troop of archers with choreographed ribbon arrows and to add horse trikes. We have full members playing La Hire and Hector de Gallard, but would love to have more of the specific knights who fought alongside Joan, costumed with the corresponding coats of arms. Contact: Captain Antoinette.
Knights Hector de Gallard and La Hire, photo by Kim Welsh
Orléans battalion
If you want to dress as a medieval lord or lady, this is the place to go! This battalion represents the grateful people of the city of Orléans at the moment of Joan’s victory, ending the English siege against the city and turning the tide of the Hundred Years War. Just behind this group of full members comes our annual winner young Joan on horseback, the king and queen and the King’s Band musicians. As townspeople, full members in this section can costume as almost any medieval role. We’d also love to have more specific characters such as Jean de Dunois “the Bastard” commander of the Orléans troops, the mayor of Orléans, the writer of the daily journal of the siege of Orléans, or the family of Jacques Boucher in whose home Joan stayed. Contact: Chris Caravella.
“Townspeople” of Orléans, photo by Kim Welsh
Domrémy battalion
This battalion near the front of the parade portrays Joan’s childhood and hometown. Children in this section wear the traditional folk costume of Domrémy (red skirt, black vest). This section is open for new members, but keep in mind that the other people in this section are groups of school children and their chaperones. Contact: Nathalie Dajko.
Trial battalion
This battalion primarily features members of the Skinz-n-Bonez drum group, as skeleton judges of death. Bishop Cauchon, Cardinal Beaufort (then Bishop of Winchester), and Joan are also characters in this section, with a Bonez performance of the trial. However, we’d love to have additional specific trial characters, such as the court reporter Guillaume Manchon who gave us most of our records of Joan’s own words and later testified at retrial about the corruption in the first trial. Full members in this section would defer to Bonez’ direction about where to walk to stay out of the way of the drummers.
Other ideas
Let us know if you have an idea for something different!
