Beginning this October, a local Philadelphia puppet theater called Spiral Q Puppet Theater will be hosting a parade and pageant to celebrate life and ancestry in Philly by bringing together groups from neighborhoods throughout the city. Central to Spiral Q's work is a vision of people from across the city parading in their own neighborhoods with art and puppets made by them about their lives today. Spiral Q works in collaboration with dozens of community groups and agencies to bring giant puppet parades and park pageants to neighborhoods all over the city. At the end of a season of smaller neighborhood parades, these groups all come together as "delegates" from their own neighborhoods to participate in an evolving Urban Arts Democracy celebrating life in Philadelphia--the Day of the Dead.

Spiral Q works in the local Philadelphia area, but there are other similar theater groups throughout the country. The most well-known of these include Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont, Wise Fools Community Theater in San Francisco, and Welfare State International in England.

Having myself participated in street pageantry and Spiral Q events throughout the years, I am struck by the power such events have to bring together diverse groups of people and communicate big ideas so beautifully. Also, it's great fun! It also occurs to me what a opportunity the making of large scale puppets and the development of community street theater can provide for teaching and learning for all ages. In an attempt to support these learning opportunities, I have been working with a team to put together a resource guide for this event--"Day of the Dead: A Celebration of Life in Philadelphia." (Email me at ccantrill@philaedfund.org if you are interested in a copy.)

My main contribution to this resource guide has been, you guessed it, websites! I wanted to share some of these sites here since they could be used to support a variety of projects and conversations in the classrooms.

The guide begins with Johnny Irizzary of the School District of Philadelphia's Office of Curriculum Support considering how theater happens in a community. Theater does not always mean something on a stage, but can and does happen in places of the community's making. Theater is "a multidisciplinary art form that is eminently social in its creation and performance." He then includes some essential questions and considerations when exploring a particular cultural event such as Day of the Dead. Suggestions include that the conversation begin with a study of the origins, history and meaning of the original event from a Mexican perspective first, and then allow for a broader interpretation of the event to allow students to reflect on how their own ancestors are honored in their own cultures. LatinoLink's on-line magazine includes a number of stories and photographs about the Day of the Dead from a first hand experience. And a good book for younger students on this event, Paulo Remembers: The Fiesta of the Day of the Dead by George Ancona, can be ordered from Amazon.com.

Then there is a really good bilingual site that gives an overview of the holiday and tons of links at this Day of the Dead website. Also here is documentation of Day of the Dead events around the US:

• San Francisco
• Detroit

Day of the Dead has ancient roots stemmed both from the Aztecs and Mayas as well as being influenced by the history of Spanish in America. You can find out more about some of the ancient Mexican roots from MesoWeb--Life and Death in Ancient Mexico. Get an overview of the history at the Arizona Republic's Day of the Dead Website.

For a printmaking project, it might be really interesting to explore the life and work of José Quadalupe Posada. He was a nineteenth century printmaker whose famous woodcuts of skeletons dressed to poke fun at prominent society members are seen in many places in relation to the Day of the Dead.

Here are some more sites to read about Posada:

• http://www.usc.edu/isd/locations/international/boeckmann/Dead/posada.html
• http://www2.hawaii.edu/~speccoll/posada.html
• http://daphne.palomar.edu/posada/posadalife.html
• http://sparc.ciateq.conacyt.mx/icaweb/muspos.html

There are also places on-line to find out about another Day of the Dead art, Papel Picado (traditional paper cutting):

• http://www.art.unt.edu/ntieva/news/vol_7/issue3/96falp11.htm
• http://www.web-net.com/cut-it-out/index.html

Additionally you can find an overview of the origins of Halloween. It gives an summary of how these fall holidays are relate throughout the world. A related book is called Halloween and other festivals of death and life by Jack Santino (Univ. of Tennessee Press).

On the puppet-making side of things, you can find on-line resources for building and participating. The Puppeteer's Cooperative homepage, includes sketches for how to make large puppets and ideas for processions. The Puppetry Homepage is another comprehensive guide and directory to puppet resources throughout the world. And then I found a site called the World of Puppets which is a K-2nd grade "Webquest" that takes students around the world to look at puppetry, reflect on what they found, write their own stories and create their puppets for a show. There are links for sharing your work on-line.

And then a really good text that I've mentioned before, but will do so again, is called Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K12 Anti-Racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development which can be ordered on-line. This site also includes excerpts and weblinks to support 'Teaching for Change.'

Bringing the conversation back to Philadelphia, the multidisciplinary nature of this theme and/or event brings with it the potential to support project-based learning opportunities in the classroom. Carol Shiffrin, also of the Office of Curriculum Support, writes "The traditional Mexican Day of the Dead celebration is a springboard for the Philadelphia celebration and parade. The purpose is to bring many of our culturally diverse communities together to honor the lives of those who came before us and to connect to our pasts." She shows how you could easily connect this to many of the local learning standards and cross-cutting competencies to make this a rich and powerful project. And a previous weekly website pulls together some on-line resources for supporting this kind of Project-Based Learning.

This year's Day of the Dead event will be Saturday, October 30th. Paraders will gather at the Paul Robeson house in West Philadelphia, 4949 Walnut Street, at 2:30pm to start a parade through the neighborhood at 3pm. The pageant itself will take place in Clark Park at 43rd and Chester at 4pm.

For those of you who are not in Philadelphia, keep an eye on the Spiral Q website for photos of the event and a downloadable copy of the K12 resource guide.

Enjoy! Christina