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 Arizona Ballet Celebrates 'Días de Muertos.' By Margaret Regan SAMHAIN AND THE Day of the Dead are over, barely, but they continue to work their haunting magic on the arts in Tucson this November. Ballet Arizona returns this weekend with its second annual performance of Días de Muertos, a full-length ballet inspired both by the Mexican holiday and by Halloween.
Painter Rafael Cauduro, a powerful practitioner of Mexican surrealism, brings the yellow marigolds and grinning skulls of folk tradition to the stage backdrops via photographic enlargements. Composer Eugenio Toussaint's score, played here on tape, draws on Mexican sources, and Berta Hiriart's story has a sweetness slightly darkened by political realities. Robert Alsopp's animal masks and Judanna Lynn's costumes make the most of the visual delights of both holidays--the traveling Mexican skeletons are dumbfounded by the witches and goblins on American streets. Uthoff hopes the show will become an Arizona holiday tradition. "Revisiting it this year, I'm very proud of it. It captures the mood, and it's a wonderful collaboration of four totally screwy artists," Uthoff said. And despite the haunting of its spirits, "It has a greater appeal than The Nutcracker because it's more human." Ballet Arizona performs Días de Muertos at 8 p.m. Saturday, November 7, at Centennial Hall at the University of Arizona. Tickets are on sale at the box office for $16, $22 and $28, with half-price tickets available for children under 18 and students with ID. Faculty and staff get a 20 percent discount. Sylvia Lopez of Tucson's Ballet Folklorico La Paloma gives a free talk at 7:15 p.m. in front of the hall. A display of ceremonial Day of the Dead altars by Desert View High School students will be in the lobby. For more information call 621-3341. Meanwhile, a ragged band of local underground artists known as the Spirit Group goes more free-form in its All Souls' Day Parade and Celebration (see Mari Wadsworth's story in the October 29 issue of the Tucson Weekly.) A horde of artist-in-residence collaborators, from avant-garde choreographer and dancer Jon McNamara to kinetic sculptor and performance artist Mat Bevel, processes through the downtown Saturday night, starting at 8 p.m. at the Zenith Center, on Seventh Street just west of Fourth Avenue. The parade goes down Fourth Avenue to Congress (a performance at the Ronstadt Transit Center will take place about 9:30 p.m.); continues down Pennington to the Main Library, and then on to the Tucson Convention Center Plaza and La Placita. All and sundry are invited to participate, however the spirit moves them.
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Choreograpector, Michael Uthoff, the bittersweet tale recounts
the immigration saga of an impoverished Mexican family to the
freezing precincts of El Norte. The new production reprises
the supple Bonnie Rich in the lead role of the young girl Tina,
who leads the spirit ancestors to the family's new home in a bleak
American city. A full compliment of 26 dancers, including stars
Yen-Li Chen-Zhang and Qisheng Zhang, dance the parts of her family
and the colorful spirits from the realm of the dead.
Artists of both the cutting-edge and folk variety never seem
to tire of the delicious imagery of the Day of the Dead. Some
of their deadly art shows have already vanished with Halloween,
but a few continue to inhabit the earth for more days or weeks.
Here's a sampling: