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Day of the Dead Celebration

Dates: Oct 29, 2011 to Nov 5, 2011

Participating Artist(s):
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Guadalupe Anaya, 'El Gallo / The Rooster'

About the artist...

Day of the Dead Celebration

Event Calendar:

• Oct 29 – Nov 5: Day of the Dead @ The Arts Center
      Regular Gallery hours: Tuesday – Friday, noon – 5 PM
      Special Exhibit Hours, Saturday Nov 5: 10am-3pm
• Oct 29 – Nov 2: Bring in and place your contribution to altars
• Nov 3, Thursday, 5:30 – 7:30 PM: Celebratory Event
• Nov 5, Saturday, noon – 5 PM: Pick up your photos, offerings, etc.

Event Description:

The Art Center is very excited to have Casa Latinos Unidos de Benton County join us creating an altar in our Main Gallery during this Day of the Dead Celebration. The centerpiece of the altar is Virgin de Guadalupe or Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the most beloved saint in Mexico.

Additionally, The Arts Center invites members of the public to participate in community altars. These altars are provided for those who want to take part in the celebration without making an entire altar themselves. You are welcome to commemorate loved ones, artists and even pets: bring photographs, mementos and items that represent the individuals commemorated. You can also include their favorite packaged food, candy and drinks but we have to decline fresh, perishable food.

The Arts Center is also proud to show international art from Mexico: a series of prints based on the popular Lotería game by Guadalupe Anaya, brought to us by Yvonne Zarata.

On First Thursday, November 3 a special celebration starts at 5:30 with traditional Mexican refreshments such as Pan de Muerto, cookies and hot chocolate. As entertainment we’ll have the theater group Shiny Penny bring informal theater, with performers on stilts inspired by the traditions of the Day of the Dead.

About the Day of The Dead

The Day of the Dead honors deceased loved ones and celebrates their lives. Participants celebrate the life of the loved ones rather than their passing. It is said that people die three deaths: the first is when the physical death happens; the second death comes when the body is buried, and the third most definite one is when there is no one left to remember us any longer.

In Mexico and South America the Day of the Dead rituals include the placement of simple altars and offerings in homes and cemeteries to pay homage to the dead. The altars at home are quite often just a table with a colorful table cloth adorned with flowers, photos, mementos and favorite food of the deceased. Day of the Dead is one of Mexico’s most important festivals and although the altars have a serious and religious character, Day of the Dead is an occasion for celebrating and feasting, cleaning and decorating graves and dancing and making music. Sugar skulls, marigolds, paper cutting, paper-maché puppets (often in the shape of skeletons), masks and even costumes are all elements that are used to decorate graves and altars.

These practices weave the cultural traditions of the indigenous pre-Columbian origins, the Spanish Christians and other groups that migrated to Mexico. The old pre-Columbian traditions were connected by the Roman Catholic church with All Saints Day on November 2, but the people of Mexico did not fully adopt the somber approach of death by Christianity -- they kept the Mayan and Aztec traditions of more joyous celebration, seeing death as a transition of life, a stage in the circle of life, not an end but a progression.

[Day of the Dead wikipedia article]