Oct. 31, 2023 - A show dramatizing the various traditions around the Day of the Dead - Dia de Los Muertos - has become CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI)’s first traveling show. CSUCI students and artists from Inlakech Cultural Arts Center in Oxnard will perform ‘El Fandango de la Muerte’ or ‘Death’s Fandango’ on Nov. 1 at the Inlakech Cultural Center and on Nov. 2 at Oxnard College. CSUCI Associate Professor of Performing Arts Catherine Burriss produced and directed the show with the director and writer of the original play, Inlakech Cultural Arts Center founder Javier Gomez.
“It’s a fun sort of take on death. It’s accessible and demystifies these traditions to help this culture embrace their own mortality,” Gomez said.
Burriss wanted to create a collaboration with the Inlakech center for a long time and bringing together this show with performers from CSUCI and Inlakech for this show seemed like the perfect way to do it.
“The show is an updated adaptation of a play Javier did for years and years,” Burriss said. “Javier is this cultural treasure and a mover and a shaker in the area.”
The show is a walk through the story and spirit of Dia de los Muertos, with sugar skulls, Folklorico and Aztec dances, a fiesta-style quinceñera, and an introduction to Mictlan Tecuhtli and Mictlan Cihuatl, the Lord and Mistress of the Dead.
“In the Mexican psyche, the celebration in death is ever so present in everything they do, such as the bread of the dead, making toys to demystify the fear of death for children, and even the songs they write,” Gomez said. “The Mexican psyche puts death in daily life. It’s about honoring and celebrating those we’ve lost, but it’s also about, how do we celebrate with one another?”
Gomez began using creative pursuits to express his activism during the 1960s, when he participated in the walkout at Roosevelt High School to protest deteriorating buildings, a neglected curriculum and other educational inequities in largely Hispanic communities like East Los Angeles.
“I was a senior and I felt the emotional changes in myself and the need for independence at the time,” said Gomez, 73. “Four years earlier, the Beatles landed in the U.S. I remember when they arrived, I was out throwing newspapers on a rainy day and I heard ‘“A Hard Day’s Night.’” It was a great time of illumination and empowerment in our country.”
While attending CSU Northridge, Gomez and a friend traveled to Delano to visit with Chicano civil rights leader Cesar Chavez. “We took food and clothing to Cesar Chavez, and he took us into his cubicle and he said ‘I want you to go back to your communities and be the change agents,” Gomez said. “The future of the community depends on what the children of our farmworkers learn.’ Inlakech is a result of that.”
CSUCI was an ideal university to work with, he said, as the majority of the campus is Latina/o and this is an important element of the Latina/o culture.
“For the last 50 years have believed strongly that the cultural foundation of what I’ve done needs to be embedded in education,” Gomez said. “For a university not to be a silo, but to bring my students to the college and have the college and the community connect.”
Burriss felt the same way and decided to pair the show with the launch of the new Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Performance Studies, which is currently in the final stages of approval with the CSU Chancellor’s Office.
“The collaboration with Inlakech Cultural Arts Center reflects the new curriculum’s engagement with local communities and cultures,” Burriss said. “It really focuses on the whole student as a performer and person, teaching them not only how to create and understand performance on the stage, but on screens of all kinds. We’re also thinking about performance in everyday life and how it is integral to understanding the entire world.” To see “El Fandango de la Muerte”:
Wednesday, Nov. 1: The 42nd Annual Dia de los Muertos Monarch Butterfly Celebration from 4 to 7 p.m. at 2242 Pleasant Valley Road, Oxnard.
Thursday, Nov. 2: Dia de los Muertos Culture, Arts, Food, Celebration! Oxnard College Performing Arts Building, 4:30 to 9 p.m. at 4000 South Rose Avenue, Oxnard.
Admission to both is free.
For more information visit BA in Theatre and Performance Studies.