COME ENJOY AN EVENING OF REMEMBRANCE & CELEBRATION!!

The 34th Annual Festival de la Vida, a Day of the Dead Celebration, will be held this year at 7:00 PM on October 24 & 25, 2008 at the Dr. Anthony Soto Theater (CET) at 701 Vine Street in Downtown San Jose, California.

Last year’s event was an enormous hit - heartwarming, inspiring, and fun - a delightful, intergenerational experience of culture, dance, and music. Along with regional dances from various parts of Mexico, Folklorico Nacional Mexicano will take you to Lake Patzcuaro with a dance presentation of Michoacan’s Day of the Dead celebrations at Tzintzuntan and Janitzio and the hilarious Danza de los Viejitos. Alto songstress, Vanessa Molina returns with a special homage to mothers and grandmothers. Award-winning singer Gabriela Sepulveda-Magana will belt out some of your favorite, toe-tapping songs. Musicians, Aztec blessings and ancestral offerings complete the evening.

El Teatro Campesino, The Farmworkers Theater of America located in San Juan Bautista, California will be celebrating , the traditional Mexican celebration of All Souls Day called “Dia de los Muertos”. This event, slated to begin on October 31, was initiated by El Teatro Campesino more than 30 years ago.

San Francisco, CA - On Sunday, November 2 at 2:00 p.m., the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) celebrates Mexican music and culture in its inaugural Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Family Concert, conducted by Enrique Arturo Diemecke with violinist Danielle Belen Nesmith and Peter Soave on bandoneón.

This matinee program designed for the entire family features works by Moncayo, Revueltas, Piazzolla, Buxtehude, Ravel, Gamboa and Copland, and will include a number of pre-concert festivities in the lobby of Davies Symphony Hall, presented in partnership with the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. For this inaugural Día de los Muertos Family Concert, the SFS will offer a 50% discount on tickets for children under the age of 17. The presenting sponsor of the Día de los Muertos Family Concert is Bank of America.

The Día de los Muertos Family Concert is part of the San Francisco Symphony’s ongoing commitment to providing compelling musical experiences for families. Its Music for Families series held at Davies Symphony Hall and the Flint Center in Cupertino offers matinee performances focusing on different aspects of the orchestra and symphonic repertoire. Specially designed to be engaging, informative and fun, these matinee concerts introduce children and families to the world of live orchestral music.

15th annual exhibition and community celebration

Bring on the dancing skeletons and sugar skulls—Días de los Muertos returns to the Oakland Museum of California for its 15th annual celebration of the dead. The exhibition opens Wednesday, Oct 8 (through Dec 7, 2008). The Community Celebration is Saturday, Oct 25.

Guest curator Fernando Hernández titled the exhibition Evolution of a Sacred Space: Días de los Muertos 2008 to convey how the spiritual tradition has changed since its pre-Columbian roots. A living tradition, Days of the Dead is recognized as a cultural holiday throughout California.

The popular Días de los Muertos Community Celebration, Saturday, Oct 25, offers craft activities, food, costumed performers, a market (mercado), and ceremonial procession into the museum gardens. Performers include Danza Xitllali, Squeezebox Sabroso, Beshbeni, Ballet Folklorico Mexicano, Mariachi San Jose, and singer Yolanda Aranda Coria, hostess of ceremonies. Hours are 12–5 p.m. and admission is free.

Day of the Dead, a lesser-known holiday stateside, is one of Mexico’s most important holidays, celebrated annually on November 1st and 2nd with festivals, cemetery gatherings and candies in the shape of skulls in honor of the lives of loved ones who have passed on.

Mexico City’s boutique Marquis Reforma hotel offers a two-night Day of the Dead package that includes: a trip, with box lunch, to the village of Mixquic outside Mexico City, famous for its Day of the Dead festivities; luxury accommodations in a Junior Suite; one spa treatment per person, per stay; daily buffet breakfast; transportation to Santa Fe shopping center; and early check-in and late check-out. The two-night Day of the Dead package is available from November 1 to 3, 2008. Rates are $820 per room based on double occupancy. For reservations or more information, call 1-800-235-2387 or visit www.marquisreforma.com <http://www.marquisreforma.com/> .

Comcast & The Unity Council Present An Oakland Greater Bay Area
Celebration of Arts & Traditions

What: The Comcast Presents Día de Los Muertos Festival is a celebration produced by the Unity Council to preserve the Latin American tradition of honoring and remembering the dead. Stretching over nine city blocks, the twelfth annual event will be attended by an anticipated 100,000 people from around the Bay Area. The festival will feature four stages, live Latin music from top regional and local performers, traditional dance, hands-on activities for children, a delectable array of food, hand-made specialty goods and more. In following with this year’s theme of “Honoring The Memories”, twenty-two memorial altars created by professional artists and community groups will be on display.

Last year’s Day of the Dead presentation was a huge hit at SJSU – MLK Library. This year’s celebration will take place in the charming CET Theater at 701 Vine Street in San Jose. It will be the 33rd Annual Festival de la Vida Celebration!!

Elena Robles will present a talk and show some of her photographic investigations for Day of the Dead over the last 24 years…in slides of images from inside the more remote areas of Mexico. The rest of the show this year will be more even larger than last year, with student and professional entertainers, mariachis, and a formal Ceremonia Azteca.