Dia de los Muertos: Tucson celebrates with All Souls Procession
About 100,000 people will dress up and honor the lives of their departed loved ones on Nov. 8.
The procession, inspired by the traditional Latin American holiday Dia de los Muertos, includes giant art projects, costumes, floats and music. It ends with a giant urn hoisted 40 feet in the air being set ablaze. This is the event's 26th year.
Dia de los Muertos is traditionally observed on Nov. 2 in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, but in recent years, multicultural public celebrations have spread to communities and cities around the U.S. with large immigrant populations. The holiday honors the departed souls of loved ones with decorated altars, photos, elaborate paper cutouts and papier-mache figurines, candles, skulls made from sugar, all-night vigils and other offerings and rituals.
Participants should gather at Sixth Avenue and Sixth Street at 4 p.m. The procession starts at 6:30 p.m. and the route follows Sixth Avenue, Alameda Street, Granada Street and Congress Street and ends at Mercado San Agustin west of Interstate 10.
On Monday, Nov. 2, the Tucson Museum of Art will hold a family-oriented Day of the Dead event. In addition, the museum has an installation by Hank Tusinski on display through Jan. 3 called “Banda Calaca,” with a large-scale seven-piece skeleton band marching toward a community memorial altar.
Details: allsoulsprocession.org, www.tucsonmuseumofart.org.