The Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday that remembers people who have passed away. On Wednesday, November 2, Rocky celebrated its own Day of the Dead celebration held in the Bair Family Student Center. There were multiple activities in which to partake while an array of traditional Mexican music played in the background. There was a station to make headdresses out of headbands, flowers, and hot glue. Another activity invovled was designing sugar skulls. Participants fastened together faces and backs using colored icing to create a full skull that could then be designed with icing, gel, feathers, and sequins. Many completed skulls were given to the Dia de Los Muertos event held downtown as decorations for their celebration on Saturday, November 5. There was also a guest invited to Rocky’s celebration that did face paintings of traditional Day of the Dead designs. The night was capped off with a showing of the Pixar movie, “Coco,” which is centered around Dia de Los Muertos.
Face painting is traditionally a representation of your deceased loved one and usually uses bright colors that can be clearly seen.
Sugar skulls traditionally represent a departed loved one and are usually placed on an alter or “ofrenda” as an offering to the spirit.
Different colors represent different things. Yellow represents the un and unity, white represents the spirit, hope, and purity, red represents blood and life, purple represents mourning, grief, and suffering, and pink signifies happiness.