Day of the Living Dead, on State

For the Second Year, SBMA Reaches Across the Institutional Divide and Down State Street for a Día de los Muertos Celebration with MCASB

2023 Day of the Dead Calenda | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom

Among annual events marking the Halloween/Día de los Muertos holiday season in town, it has been a decades-deep tradition to convene at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) for a family day of activities and festivities, with live music, dance, and refreshments in tow. Kids of all ages and backgrounds come together on this hallowed day, with and without direct links to the artistic agenda of the museum’s mission.

As of last year, the now 35-year-old tradition expanded to include a more expansive move into the public space of State Street, along with a deepening inter-institutional collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCASB). This relatively new cross-museum pact resulted in the prominent art exhibition collaboration from earlier this year, conceptual photographer Janna Ireland’s True Story Index, spanning both museum venues.

At SBMA on Sunday, October 20 (a week earlier than usual), from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., there will be the customary displays and adornments of timely altars, and activities including face-painting, still-life collages inspired by noted artist Alfredo Ramos Martínez and diorama-like newspaper nichos (three-dimensional shadow boxes) inspired by famed Mexican master Rufino Tamayo. Also in the activity mix are paper flower headdresses, which make suitable costume ornaments for the post-SBMA event parade.

With or without headdresses, the celebratory plan now tethers SBMA with MCASB, as participants spill out into the street for a ceremonial Oaxacan procession known as the “Day of the Dead Calenda,” winding up in a blithe and blissful heap of dance-inspired humanity in the Arts Terrace of the MCASB’s home turf of the Paseo Nuevo. The Calenda is described as “a traditional celebration that represents the expression of joy, the strengthening of family, community, and personal bonds.”

2023 Day of the Dead Calenda | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom
2023 Day of the Dead Calenda | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom
2023 Day of the Dead Calenda | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom
2023 Day of the Dead Calenda | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom
2023 Day of the Dead Calenda | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom
2023 Day of the Dead Calenda | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom
2023 Day of the Dead Calenda | Photo: Ingrid Bostrom

True enough: At the large gathering at last year’s inaugural event, music and dance lined the way and sparked the day. On tap for this year’s celebration are groups rooted in cultural rituals and performance practices from the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, including Banda de Viento de San Jorge de Oaxaca, Lico Music Academy, Las Danzas de los Díablos and Rubios de la Mixteca Baja grupo Agua Azul, Danza de la Pluma San Pablo Güilá and the epic-masked puppets of Oaxacreation Monos de Calenda.

The MCASB portion of the day’s event includes Oaxacan cuisine, art vendors, an altar of the dead, and a dance party led by Los Hijos de San Juan Mixtepec from 6:30 to 7 p.m.

A long-standing local tradition and now even richer, mobile feast of Mexicana awaits. Call it “Old Mexican Day.” For more information, see sbma.net/learn/kidsfamilies/ffdand bit.ly/4eEmzEC.