Tonight I went over to the Chicano House at CSUN for the opening of their annual Dia de Los Muertos exhibition, where they turn the entire house into a series of shrines for the deceased loved ones of the student artists. There are also walls and altars dedicated to non-relatives, and this year they had a theme in which victims of violence were remembered, especially women and children and members of the transgender community. Each room in the house was different, some lit only by candles, others with colored lights and one room full of dangling crosses that was awash in bright flourescent light. There were painted Mexican death masks on tables and beautiful "skeletal" artwork on the walls, all in celebration of the dead. On the altars are left things the departed liked in life : sodas, beers, chips and cakes. Books and bibles. Bottles of perfume. But mostly food, and stories. Food, pictures, candles and a synopsis of a life story represent the spirits.
And the artwork in every room honors them as a group.
The students are very creative and it is a privilege to attend their show each year, just a short walk from my apartment on the campus border.
Grimsley showed up at around 8pm, and we watched a music and dance ritual take place on the patio. I have been attending the Dia de Los Muertos celebrations for four years now, but I had never before seen the opening night ritual of the Dance Of The Dead. I know that Stephen King just posted a ban on the word "amazing", haha, but tonight I have gotta use it because I am very tired and cannot think of a synonym at this late hour that is not equally trite.
The dance was performed by a troupe of four young women and one man who acted as a kind of barker or a reciter of incantations. Before he spoke, he carried out each of the dancers on his back and laid their "lifeless" bodies on the bare bricks of the Chicano House side yard. The dancers represented The Dead. They lay on the ground in contorted positions as the "barker" settled into a speech, in Spanish, which sounded like a set of instructions to the dead, and also like a history lesson for the audience. As he continued to speak, a small band kicked in, with a violinist in the lead. There were bongos for percussion, and as the music played, the "deceased" dancers came back to life and rose up slowly from the ground. They moved in herky-jerky motions suggestive of skeletons, unaware of their surroundings at first but then becoming acclimated through the rhythms of the music.
It had a hypnotizing effect. I had never seen anything like it, especially as the "barker" called out his instructions to the dancers, in Spanish, as if he were helping to bring them back to life.
As the dance came to an end, more recitations were made, including a call and response where names were uttered by the performers, and a woman in the audience would reply with "we wish they were back to life"! Other audience members then tossed orange and white paper flowers onto the bricks, where the dancers had previously lain "dead".
I wish I'd had a program to explain the intricacies of the dance, and to provide a translation of the words spoken by the "barker". But even without a program, the meaning was communicated and understood simply by the nature of the holiday being celebrated.
This performance had quite an effect on me, especially when combined with the artistic display inside the House.
I thought of Kobi, because in the years 2010-2014 when I would take him to CSUN on Sunday mornings (before I was in the choir), we would on occasion go to the Chicano House. There, on a sunny Sunday morn, say in February, the House would seem dormant. I would let the Kobedog off his leash and he would sniff around the place. I remember in my mind that he would favor the patio area, where the bricks are located.
So tonight as I watched the dancers, I thought of Kobi. He died in 2017, but I imagined him as part of this year's remembrance. While the music played and the dancers danced, I imagined him sniffing around as he used to do on those quiet Sunday mornings, when the Chicano House sat dormant in Winter.
Tonight the music played and the dancers danced and the House was transformed out of dormancy by the art of the students, and the Dead were brought back to life. I thought of the Doberman, just because he and I used to go on walks there, on the lawn surrounding Chicano House. I really loved that dog, and I feel he is still with me. I think these are things you can always tell.
This was the first evening of Dia de Los Muertos, the night after Halloween. Now I am tired because I haven't had much sleep in recent days.
I will write more and catch up tomorrow. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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