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The Day of the Dead is a spiritual celebration revolving around the communion between the living and the dead. In Boulder, Colorado, an art exhibit called Noche de Muertos: A Chicano Journey into a Michoacan Night celebrates the traditional roots of this cultural celebration, while making it a vital part of modern day Latino reality. From Boulder, Colorado, Betto Arcos prepared this report.

[Transition--Natural Sounds--Choir vocals]

The exhibition was conceived around the theme of a traditional cemetery, but the most powerful images are the altars and paintings that celebrate death and life, as in a large canvas painting of a cemetery at night. Standing near tombs covered with cempasúchil or marigold flowers, a man sings and plays the guitar. Artist Carlos Frésquez. [Choir vocals]

This particular painting is about life. It's about living. It's not about death. It's not about death. There's one woman, Calavera Catrina, she's dressed to celebrate. And really, that's what this is. It's a celebration. It's a magical piece. It's not a true reality. It's my reality.[Choir vocals]

Silvia...Mercedes...Alonso...Lupita [Choir vocals]

For inspiration leading to the exhibition of Noche de Muertos: Chicano Journey into a Michoacan Night, in 1991, a Chicano artist from Colorado traveled to the Mexican state of Michoacan.

We went into Michoacan with the intent of experiencing the days of the dead with the indigenous peoples of Mexico, in this case, Pátzcuaro and Tzintzuntzan, and coming back with that experience, and documenting it through Chicano interpretations of the visual arts.

George Rivera is professor of sociology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and co-curator of Noche de Muertos: Chicano Journey into Michoacan Night.

We went there to discover ourselves through the cultural mirror of the people of Mexico as they viewed and celebrate the days of the dead. [Choir vocals]

In Noche de Muertos, the artist also paid tribute to the life and struggle of farm worker leader Cesar Chavez, who passed away last April. [Choir vocals]

And alongside the exhibit, you will see for nichos that are all tributes to Cesar Chavez, the farm workers, and Dolores Huerta. They were done by Megan Rodriguez, Tony Ortega, Aileen Lucero, and myself, as, again, the nichos with rosaries, with candles, celebrating what Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the Farm Worker Movement was all about. [Choir vocals]

The altar is shaped like an inverted pyramid, representing the eagle emblem of the Farm Workers Union, and built with empty letters boxes sent by the UFW's office in Salinas, California. [Choir vocals and whispers]

[Whispers]...Cesar...Juanita...[Whispers, voices]

Noche de Muertos also features a number of collaborative altars in memory of deceased relatives. One of them called Altar a Nuestras Abuelas includes an image of the Lady of Guadalupe, surrounded by photographs of the artist's grandmothers. Artist Sylvia Montero. [Whispers]

We just always have felt that we would not be the Chicanas we are today if it had not been for our grandmothers and their experiences in their lifetime, how things have changed. I believe that there's an evolutionary process to becoming Chicana, and I think the grandmother's a part of that evolution of how we become who we are.

Another prominent altar is dedicated to the memory of the early '50s rocker Ritchie Valens. The altar is designed as a stage, with Ritchie Valens at the center, and two little angels holding an electric guitar on top. It's the work of artists Rick Manzanares and Carlos Frésquez.

Rick Manzanares talked to his aunt and asked, what was his favorite things to do? She said, "He loved to eat, as we all do, and he liked to roller skate as a child." So we have a pair of roller skates. And what he left was his music, and that's still alive today.

For all of those involved in Noche de Muertos: Chicano Journey into a Michoacán Night, the exhibit is more than just an art show. George Rivera says, "It's a celebration and a revitalization of Chicano culture."

And so, Noche de Muertos and Día de los Muertos was important for us to go there and document in some way so that we and the generations to come will remember what our ancestors and the people who came from Mexico and migrated here to this country, how they understood and interpreted their dead, and how they respected that within the culture. [singing]

[Choir vocals]

Currently, an exhibition at the University of Colorado Art Galleries, Noche de Muertos: Chicano Journey into Michoacan Night moved to the Museo de Las Americas in Denver until December 4th. In 1995, it will travel to Amsterdam and other European cities. For Latino USA, this is Betto Arcos in Boulder, Colorado.