Interactive Multimedia: A Take on Traditional Day of the Dead Altars

Author(s):  
Ramón Iván Barraza Castillo ◽  
Alejandra Lucía De la Torre Rodríguez ◽  
Rogelio Baquier Orozco ◽  
Gloria Olivia Rodríguez Garay ◽  
Silvia Husted Ramos ◽  
...  
Heliyon ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. e03339
Author(s):  
Rogelio Baquier Orozco ◽  
Ramón Iván Barraza Castillo ◽  
Silvia Husted Ramos

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
Orquidea Morales

In 2013, the Walt Disney Company submitted an application to trademark “Día de los muertos” (Day of the Dead) as they prepared to launch a holiday themed movie. Almost immediately after this became public Disney faced such strong criticism and backlash they withdrew their petition. By October of 2017 Disney/Pixar released the animated film Coco. Audiences in Mexico and the U.S. praised it's accurate and authentic representation of the celebration of Day of the Dead. In this essay, I argue that despite its generic framing, Coco mobilizes many elements of horror in its account of Miguel's trespassing into the forbidden space of the dead and his transformation into a liminal figure, both dead and alive. Specifically, with its horror so deftly deployed through tropes and images of borders, whether between life and death or the United States and Mexico, Coco falls within a new genre, the border horror film.


Grand Street ◽  
1993 ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Stacey Land Johnson
Keyword(s):  

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Elena Lunes Jiménez

El artículo presenta una revisión de la literatura generada alrededor de la noción y concepto de ch’ulel, basada en la cosmovisión tsotsil-tseltal, en el altiplano chiapaneco. De acuerdo con las interpretaciones que los autores han realizado sobre dicho concepto, la información se sistematiza sobre los siguientes significados: ch’ulelcomo alma; en la salud y en la enfermedad; en la conciencia de los niños; como control social; el vayijelal o animal compañero como vela de la vida y como calor. Se distingue el concepto de ch’ulel con ch’ulelal;este último vinculado con la celebración del día de muertos. Se expone en su conjunto y como aporte de este artículo el concepto de Mundo ch’ulel.   SUMMARY The article presents a review of literature generated around the notion and concept of ch’ulel, based on the Tsotsil-Tseltal cosmovision, in the high plains region of the state of Chiapas. According to the interpretations formulated by the authors on said concept, information is systematized on the following meanings: the ch’ulel as soul; in health and in sickness; in the conscience of children; as social control; the vayijelal or companion animal; as candle of life and as heat. The ch’ulel concept is distinguished from that of ch’ulelal, the latter associated with the celebration of the day of the dead.  The concept of “ch’ulel world” is expounded as a whole and as contribution of this article.


Author(s):  
Rachel Bowditch

At dusk close to 100,000 people clad in black and white face paint and hand-made costumes emerge from all directions marching along a two-mile procession route from Hotel Congress in Tucson, Arizona to the finale site carrying puppets, banners, effigies, floats and posters with photographs of the dead of all shapes and sizes. Crowds of people line the streets; however unlike the Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Parade and other official processions, there are no street barriers separating those marching in the procession and those observing; the lines are porous and blurred. Participants move fluidly in and out of the procession between spectating and marching: dancing, drumming and walking. There is no clear distinction between sidewalk and street; between official performers and spectators—everyone is a participant. There is a somber sense of excitement and anticipation. A large-scale sculptural urn assisted by guardians from the performance troupe Flam Chen weaves through the dense crowd collecting hand-written prayers and offerings from passersby. Day of the Dead motifs of black and white skeletons, flowers, and masks dominate the visual landscape mixed with a fusion of hybrid imagery that evokes death, memory and celebration. Suspended weightlessly above a crowd of fire-lit faces, a figure moves gracefully without a safety net, wrapping her body in aerial silks tethered to helium balloon clusters. Stilted figures in ornate hand-constructed costumes twirl fire to the thundering beating drum. Costumed figures scale the metal tower with torches to light the large paper mache urn, which is filled with the prayers of the entire community. Flames lick up the sides of the urn transforming it into a ball of raging fire; the crowd cheers as they watch their prayers ascend into the darkness. This ritual burning of the urn signifies the culminating act of the Tucson All Souls’ Procession. Flam Chen, pyrotechnic performance troupe from Tucson and Many Mouths One Stomach, the organizers of the event, stage a fire aerial performance followed by the symbolic burning of the urn filled with the community’s prayers and wishes.


Author(s):  
Steven Earnshaw

Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano places the committed drinker, in the form of ex-Consul Geoffrey Firmin, in the Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’ festival, so that the main character encounters ‘hell’ in physical and spiritual dimensions. The novel is technically innovative in its aim to register the subjective experience of the Existential drinker: Geoffrey Firmin’s world is constructed through a highly-individualised, expressionistic symbolism, a mid-century representation of the modern, alienated self, abandoned and suffering despair in a Godless world – the latter made evident by the novel’s attention to the rise of totalitarianism, which forms the backdrop to the events here on a day close to the onset of World War II. There is discussion of the novel’s difficulty and form, and a comparison of some aspects of the novel with Kafka’s The Trial, and how these relate to representation of the Existential drinker.


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