The CSUMB, VPA, MPA, and RUAP collaborations
on Dia de los Muertos within community partnerships supports the maintenance
and revitalization of these practices. Students, youth, community artists,
visiting artists, and faculty work together in both community sites and
campus sites to prepare for the celebration of this important tradition.
The strategies include community-based arts education workshops on traditional
Muertos crafts and a community festival of ceremony, dance, music, and
poetry. The arts education workshops include sugar skull making, mask
making, and the creation of 2-D and 3D personal or communal altars in
remembrance of loved ones and community figures. The performance elements
bring together traditional Aztec dancing, Mexican folkloric dancing, traditional
folk songs, spoken word and calavera poetry. In 2002, RUAP hosted the
creation of a Healing Wall based initially in the Salinas Community and
shared with the public at the Day of the Dead event. The Healing Wall
was a form of communal remembrance that the public could add to in the
form of photographs, names on ribbons, and imagery. Day of the Dead has
been a regular activity for the VPA 2-D and 2-D students whose sculptures
and paintings have contributed to the setting at the CSUMB community ceremony.
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Dia
de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is an on-going Mexican tradition
transformed in contemporary practices. It is a celebration that sustains
communities through the remembrance of loved ones. Day of the Dead is
relevant to the resilience practices of communities facing issues of gang
violence, loss of identity, negative public perception, and limited arts
education support. The power of the spirituality transformed through art
is an expression of cultural citizenship common to Latino communities.
It is a contribution valuable to other communities of the Central California
region and consequently is increasing in popularity. CSUMB, through the
Institutes for Visual and Public Art and Music and Performing Arts and
the RUAP program, continues to collaboratively support this tradition.
