El Centro Milagro Presents Day of the Dead Altar Exhibit, 10/20-11/13
By: Kelsey Denette Sep. 30, 2011
From Oct. 20 through Nov. 13, Miracle Theatre Group will display an exhibit of ofrendas (altars) created by local Latino artists in celebration of Día de los muertos (Day of the Dead). The exhibit, curated by Pepe Moscoso of FusionArte is free and open to the public one hour prior to each performance of Miracle Theatre Group's original, bilingual production ¡Viva la Revolución!, plus by appointment for student groups.
"The Day of the Dead reaches into the ancient history of Mexico, when the spirits of dead relatives are allowed to return to the mortal world to visit loved ones," says Moscoso, who is the host of a Spanish-language radio program on KBOO and a visual artist himself. "The spirits are greeted with offerings of food and things that the person enjoyed in life. These are laid out on a Day of the Dead altar, and it is believed that the spirits consume the essence and the aroma of the foods that are offered."Pepe Moscoso was born in León, Guanajuato, México. His interest in photography and collage are born of a desire to transmit and show his way of seeing the world. His projects focus on a search for strangeness and details which are not often noticed, but which can create an entire space and feeling in and of themselves, such as in documentary work. He coordinates FusionArte, a project that creates opportunities to share and dialog among different art expressions. It seeks to promote art with exchange, solidarity and cooperation. He also hosts a radio program in KBOO FM radio that focuses on art and culture and play music from different genres and in various languages. Pepe has taught photography classes at different universities, art schools, and nonprofit organizations. In Oaxaca, he was reporter for the newspaper, "El Oaxaqueño," which was distributed in Los Angeles, CA. He was a reporter for two sections of the paper, and was co-director of the EFE School of Photography.
This is an ancient festivity that has been much transformed through the years, but which was intended in pre-Hispanic Mexico to celebrate children and the dead. Hence, the best way to describe this Mexican holiday is to say that it is a time when Mexican families remember their dead, and the continuity of life.Two important things to know about the Mexican Day of the Dead (Día de los muertos) are: It is a holiday with a complex history, and therefore its observance varies quite a bit by region and by degree of urbanization. It is not a morbid occasion, but rather a festive time.The original celebration can be traced to many Mesoamerican native traditions, such as the festivities held during the Aztec month of Miccailhuitontli, ritually presided by the "Lady of the Dead" (Mictecacihuatl), and dedicated to children and the dead. In the Aztec calendar, this ritual fell roughly at the end of the Gregorian month of July and the beginning of August, but in the post-conquest era it was moved by Spanish priests so that it coincided with the Christian holiday of All Saints Day (in Spanish: "Día de Todos Santos.") This was a vain effort to transform the observance from a profane to a Christian celebration. The result is that Mexicans now celebrate the day of the dead during the first two days of November, rather than at the beginning of summer. But remember the dead they still do, and the modern festivity is characterized by the traditional Mexican blend of ancient aboriginal and introduced Christian features. Generalizing broadly, the holiday's activities consist of families (1) welcoming their dead back into their homes, and (2) visiting the graves of their close kin. At the cemetery, family members engage in sprucing up the gravesite, decorating it with flowers, setting out and enjoying a picnic, and interacting socially with other family and community members who gather there. In both cases, celebrants believe that the souls of the dead return and are all around them. Families remember the departed by telling stories about them. The meals prepared for these picnics are sumptuous, usually featuring meat dishes in spicy sauces, chocolate beverages, cookies, sugary confections in a variety of animal or skull shapes, and a special egg-batter bread ("pan de muerto," or bread of the dead). Gravesites and family altars are profusely decorated with flowers (primarily large, bright flowers such as marigolds and chrysanthemums), and adorned with religious amulets and with offerings of food, cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. Because of this warm social environment, the colorful setting, and the abundance of food, drink and good company, this commemoration of the dead has pleasant overtones for the observers, in spite of the open fatalism exhibited by all participants, whose festive interaction with both the living and the dead in an important social ritual is a way of recognizing the cycle of life and death that is human existence. In homes, observant families create an altar and decorate it with items that they believe are beautiful and attractive to the souls of their departed ones. Such items include offerings of flowers and food, but also things that will remind the living of the departed (such as their photographs, a diploma, or an article of clothing), and the things that the dead prized and enjoyed while they lived. This is done to entice the dead and assure that their souls actually return to take part in the remembrance.In very traditional settings, typically found only in native communities, the path from the street to the altar is actually strewn with petals to guide the returning soul to its altar and the bosom of the family. The traditional observance calls for departed children to be remembered during the first day of the festivity (the Day of the Little Angels, El día de los Angelitos), and for adults to be remembered on the second day. Traditionally, this is accompanied by a feast during the early morning hours of November the 2nd, the Day of the Dead proper, though modern urban Mexican families usually observe the Day of the Dead with only a special family supper featuring the bread of the dead. In southern Mexico, for example in the city of Puebla, it is good luck to be the one who bites into the plastic toy skeleton hidden by the baker in each rounded loaf. Friends and family members give one another gifts consisting of sugar skeletons or other items with a death motif, and the gift is more prized if the skull or skeleton is embossed with one's own name. Another variation found in the state of Oaxaca is for the bread to be molded into the shape of a body or burial wrap, and for a face to be embedded on one end of the loaf. During the days leading up to and following the festivity, some bakeries in heavily aboriginal communities cease producing the wide range of breads that they typically sell so that they can focus on satisfying the demand for bread of the dead.The Day of the Dead can range from being a very important cultural event, with defined social and economic responsibilities for participants (exhibiting the socially equalizing behavior that social anthropologists would call redistributive feasting, e.g. on the island of Janitzio in Michoacan state), to being a religious observance featuring actual worship of the dead (e.g., as in Cuilapan, Oaxaca, an ancient capital of the Zapotec people, who venerated their ancestors and whose descendants do so to this day, an example of many traditional practices that Spanish priests pretend not to notice), to simply being a uniquely Mexican holiday characterized by special foods and confections (the case in all large Mexican cities.) In general, the more urban the setting within Mexico the less religious and cultural importance is retained by observants, while the more rural and Indian the locality the greater the religious and economic import of the holiday. Because of this, this observance is usually of greater social importance in southern Mexico than in the northern part of the country. ABOUT THE PLAY "¡VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!"
Every fall, the dead are commemorated in Portland's longest-running Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration. This year, we honor las adelitas, the women who bravely planted themselves in the line of fire in support of the Mexican revolutionaries. Through music and dance, we share a story of those who fight fearlessly for liberty - both a hundred years ago and still today.
ABOUT THE SPONSORS
¡Viva la Revolución! is sponsored by Ronni Lacroute, The Oregonian and the Consulate of Mexico in Portland.Miracle Theatre Group's 2011-2012 season is sponsored in part by Meyer Memorial Trust, The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, The Kinsman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Oregon Arts Commission, Regional Arts & Culture Council and Work for Art, El Centinela, and El Hispanic News.
ABOUT MIRACLE THEATRE GROUP
The Miracle Theatre Group has been dedicated to bringing the vibrancy of Latino theatre to the Northwest community and beyond for more than 25 years. In addition to its national tours, Miracle provides a home for Spanish and Latin American arts and culture at El Centro Milagro, where it enriches the local community with a variety of community outreach projects and educational programs designed to share the diversity of Latino culture. For more information about the Miracle Theatre Group, visit www.milagro.org or call 503-236-7253.
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