The topic of death in the west is taboo and scary, said Durango Arts Center Exhibits Director Peter Hay. In some cultures, death is celebrated. Dia de los Muertos originated in South and Central Mexico as a way for people to remember lost loved ones. Mexicans celebrate with food, decorative altars to commemorate the departed and a procession to the graveyard that returns the dead to their home.
Hay hopes the Festival de los Muertos at the arts center Nov. 1 to Nov. 9 will teach the community about the significance behind the Mexican tradition through art and performance.
“It’s a beautiful way to celebrate death. In doing so, you celebrate life,” Hay said.
There are a few reasons Hay settled on the idea.
“We live in a place called Durango, in a county called La Plata, in the state of Colorado,” Hay said, adding that he noticed the Southwest’s strong connection to Latino culture, the large Latino-American population, but a lack of events celebrating that culture. But he said he did see elements being appropriated – like the Day of the Dead sugar skull on bags, jewelry, even tattooed on flesh – existing simultaneously with negative Mexican immigrant rhetoric.
“It’s like, ‘We like your designs, colors and food, but not you,’” he said.
In order to respectfully celebrate, Hay started planning in February and passed out flyers for a bilingual community meeting for input.
“One thing that is very important is to not lose authenticity,” Hay said. “A big interest for me is education and appreciation, and for everybody to leave with a whole new set of ideas of what Dia de los Muertos is.”
To teach the community and participants about the holiday, DAC held workshops about the history and traditions. They hosted an open call to build altars and required those who signed up to go to a roundtable discussing the significance of the custom. DAC also worked with six after-school programs that built altars that will be on display in the Barbara Conrad Gallery along with 24 community-built altars. There will also be one open altar the public can contribute to that was built by Young People in Recovery .
In addition to the art, there will be two nights of performances. Nov. 1 will feature “Entre El Cielo Y La Tiera,” the premiere of a collaborative dance created by Sur Oeste Arte Escenico of Mexico City, which partnered with La Plata Family Centers Coalition and local children and parents.
Stephanie Garcia is the performing arts director, choreographer and performer at Sur Oeste. She said the choreography for the collaborative dance was inspired by Mexico’s death celebration tradition.
“For centuries, Christianity has inserted the idea of fearing to die or to receive a punishment depending on your behavior in life,” Garcia said. “This has created a kind of gap in our psyche between the natural way to understand death – the fact that we will die and the way to coexist with this fact.”
Garcia said growing up in Catholicism taught her this fear of death and going to Hell if she was a bad child. Later in life, she saw this a tool of religion to take advantage of people, she said of her personal experience. This experience, along with losing loved ones, forced her to reflect on her relationship to death.
“I realized that dying is a natural process, that is necessary and that everything has to ‘finish or end’ to be able to begin again, to be renovated,” she said. “So, when I had the chance to work on this piece for this special community project ... it was an amazing chance to share how I understand death and how important it has been in my own life.”
Katie Clancy, who works with 20MOONS Dance Theatre and is owner of Studio Soma, was taught the Sur Oeste choreography through a video. Clancy then taught the dance to local parent and child participants.
Other performances will include a dance by Ballet Folklorico de Durango, a cultural dance group based at Fort Lewis College, followed by a screening of “Musical Mandala,” a video showing an actual precession to a graveyard in Mexico that will be filmed the day before. There will also be activities for children, food, drinks and a cash-only bar.
On Nov. 2, Sur Oeste will perform “11:11,” which explores existential dread and how to overcome it. The show premiered in Cuba last year and is going on a small U.S. tour. The DAC performance is included at one of the stops.
Both Nov. 1 and 2 festivities are followed by an after-party at Cantera until 10 p.m.
“What we are doing in the DAC is a small portion of the celebration that happens in Mexico,” Hay said. “We want to help share the significance of the day in the fullest way we can.”
If you go
What:
Inaugural Festival de los Muertos.
When:
Nov. 1-9.
Where:
Durango Arts Center, 802 East Second Ave.
More information:
For tickets and the full schedule, visit
.
