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10-26-24-dia-de-los-muertos-at-penn-museum-uma-mukhopadhyay
The 13th annual Día de Los Muertos CultureFest! was held at the Penn Museum on Oct. 26. Credit: Uma Mukhopadhyay

The Penn Museum hosted its 13th annual Día de Los Muertos CultureFest! on Oct. 26 in partnership with the Mexican Cultural Center.

The event focused on celebrating Mexican culture and educating attendees about Day of the Dead traditions. The celebration included displays of ofrendas—which are traditional Day of the Dead altars—an artisan marketplace, live performances, Mexican hot chocolate, and samples of pan de muerto, which is a type of Mexican bread made to celebrate the holiday.

“One of the most significant and colorful traditions in Mexican culture is Día de Los Muertos,” President of the Board of Directors of the Mexican Cultural Center Araceli Guenther said. “The Penn Museum helps to bring that day to life by celebrating the rich cultural heritage that blends Indigenous beliefs with traditions during Spanish colonization.”

For Penn Museum Associate Director of Public Engagement Tena Thomason, who helped plan the event, CultureFest! provides a valuable opportunity to celebrate other traditions.

“It’s important to celebrate and learn from other cultures,” she said. “We’re so different, but we’re so alike in so many ways.”

Thomason cited the large ofrenda—created by artists Martín Anguiano and Maria Felix and assembled over the course of a week—as the exhibition she considered to be the highlight of the day. The colorful altar stood in the rotunda of the museum’s Asia gallery, surrounded by a craft marketplace and a table giving out pan de muerto and Mexican hot chocolate.

Live performances at the event focused on showing off elements of Mexican culture while educating members of the audience on what the traditions represented. While the band Juntas Chicas played, audience members stood up from their seats and danced around the auditorium as one of the band members performed a traditional Mexican dance on stage.

Other live performances of the day included a set by Esmeralda LaCor, a mariachi–inspired singer seeking to educate children through music, a dance show by Ballet Folklorico Yaretzi, and a comedy routine by Payaso Bombin, a clown.

College sophomore Maria Osegueda highlighted the importance of CultureFest! to her as an international student.

“I’m from El Salvador, and we all celebrate Day of the Dead, and I don’t really have many celebrations similar to that here in Philadelphia. So I really wanted to come to this event,” she said. “I think celebrating cultures allows us to understand more about others, and participating in other cultures helps us see different identities that might not always be represented.”

In the afternoon, visitors lined up outside the doors of the Asia gallery for Mexican hot chocolate. The line extended out the doors of the gallery, across the museum’s upper level, and down the stairs as attendees waited in anticipation—both for the Mexican hot chocolate and for the announcement of the winner of the celebration’s community altar contest.

Along with Día de Los Muertos, the Penn Museum hosts several other CultureFest! events each year, including those for Lunar New Year, Juneteenth, Holi, and Kwanzaa.

“I love to see the museum alive with visitors [and] just to have that energy in here, [with] everyone learning about this beautiful culture,” Thomason said. “There’s so much trouble out in the world right now, but we can come in here and celebrate together.”