If residents are looking to celebrate Día de los Muertos this weekend, El Teatro Campesino and San Benito High School are offering options.
El Teatro and the high school put on annual Día de los Muertos (“Day of the Dead”) events. This year’s festivities take place Friday through Sunday for El Teatro and Saturday at San Benito High School.
“This is a long tradition,” SBHS art teacher Luisa Toste told San Benito Live. “When I came here in 2005, it was already being done by Louise Roy.”
Roy had been a ceramics teacher at the school and is a local artist. In the past three years, some of the Spanish teachers also have joined the organizational efforts at the school.
“We do it to celebrate people who’ve passed in our lives,” Toste said.
With the various classes taking part, there should be about 500 students involved showing their artwork.
The festivities are from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the school in the new Visual Arts Building, which is next to the gym.
The event will feature Folklorico Mexico en la Piel at 3 p.m., SBHS Ritmo Latino at 3:30 p.m., Mariachi Orgullo Mexicano at 4 p.m., and Kalpulli Izkalli Dancers at 5 p.m.
Overall, there will be lots of art, food and entertainment for the community, and it’s a free event. Some of the other entertainment will include face painting and chalk art on the concrete.
“It’s a way of celebrating a culture that represents 50 or 60 percent of the school community,” Toste said.
Over in San Juan Bautista over the weekend, El Teatro will include daily performances inside the Teatro Playhouse by folkloric dance group Esperanza del Valle with tickets required, altar exhibits and free activities in the parking lot from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.
There won’t be a procession through town this year, but in the parking lot Teatro will offer live music, dancing calaveras, tacos for sale and raffles.
Day of the Dead lives on at SBHS, El Teatro
