The TA’YER Multicultural Performance Collective, in partnership with the Pasadena/Altadena Coalition of Transformative Leaders (PACTL), celebrates Halloween – or its Latin American version – on Saturday with an exhibition and contest of miniature Day of the Dead altars at Cabrera’s Mexican Restaurant in Pasadena.
The miniature altar exhibition will also be a competition in which audience members can vote for the three best altars, with the winners receiving gift certificates, said Fernando Castro, executive director of the TA’YER Latino Arts Collective.
“We’ve been working for the last three years with PACTL under the guidance of Helena Ayala, who has been a significant outreach to the community, doing theater workshops… multi-generational, where little kids join their mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers, ” Castro said.
The event warms up with theater games moving around the venue, and then a folk arts teacher provides kids with projects to do, such as creating paper bag lanterns and making “papel picado,” which is basically cutting elaborate designs into sheets of multi-colored paper and hanging them for display, and painting porcelain “calaveras,” or miniature skulls, Castro said.
The altar preparation, calavera painting and papel picado work has actually begun and continues through Thursday at the Flintridge Center, 236 Mountain St. The creators will take the finished artwork home and bring them to Cabrera’s Mexican Restaurant by Saturday morning.
Then the honoring ceremony begins, where family members who’ve had a loved one recently pass away bring offerings to the typically-sized altar to honor the departed.
“And that is the teaching of not being scared of death but reflects the love and the dedication to celebrate the loved one’s memory,” Castro said. “There is a ritual where offerings are presented to the central altar and read what it means for the offering. A group of people enter, dressed as ‘catrinas’ (usually depicting rich women with the faces painted with a skull design) and they will do some dance, one particular dance or moving piece with the sound of ‘La Llorona,’ which is a traditional song.”
For the competition, audience members will be able to cast their votes to decide on their favorite altar.
“The event means bringing back memories, bringing out traditions, and giving it a different twist,” Castro said, stressing that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted so many and especially ravaged communities of color. “Through the use of art, culture, ritual and memory, these celebrations allow us to collectively grieve and honor those who have passed before us.”
As a diverse group of Latino immigrants, day laborers, parents, workers and other community members, the TA’YER arts collective encourages the community to present through art their personal experiences and reflections on social issues: immigration, homophobia and human rights.
The nonprofit group dedicates its efforts at helping at-risk youth, recent immigrants and the LGBT community engage in arts and community issues.
The Day of the Dead Exhibit opens at noon at Cabrera’s, 655 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena.
