7. A Lovely Mexican Ghost

Mexican festival. Image©Ruth Lor Malloy 2010

It’s not often that I can see a preview before a festival show that will appear the following weekend at Harbourfront. It happened last Sunday at the Wychwood Barns.  The Doubledoble Performing Art group presented “The Skulls of Posada” there.  It also demonstrated some very lively Aztec dances. It was part of the Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations.  

When you get to Harbourfront for its 4pm show Saturday and Sunday, November 6 and 7, try to get a copy of the Skulls program at the desk. The show is in Spanish and the program explains everything in English.  While you can guess what’s going on without it, you will enjoy it better if you know.

The show is fantastic and well worth seeing. Do let me know if you agree. The actors are excellent.  It is morbid in spots, and sometimes funny.  I loved the mood and the drums when the actors carried in a coffin. Look for the actress playing the famous Frida and listen for the rhythm of the poetry. 

The performance is in thirteen short and different scenes, divided by music. The first is Creation with an Aztec dancer reciting from the sacred Mayan book. Then comes the eery funeral procession, followed by the arrival of Death, and later a ghostly fiesta.  Poems are recited in a bar and one of the characters shows it’s worth being dead for a single kiss from a lovely but dead woman named Lupita.

At Harbourfront there will also be a Day of the Dead altar,  Mexican food, crafts, films, demonstrations, etc.  See: http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/,