Munich celebrates the “Día de los Muertos” – Munich

“Today it blooms and sparkles on every grave, one day in the year is free for the dead; come to my heart that I have you again, like once in May”, so it says in the art song “Allerseelen” by Richard Strauss; This tenderly romantic languor was written by a gentleman named Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg (1812 – 1864). Feelings of mourning are probably the same all over the world, but how culturally different the way they are dealt with can be: while in this country people quietly “go to the grave”, lighting paraffin candles in red plastic, and there is a general ban on dancing, in Mexico they storm the cemeteries , bring food for the deceased, dance, sing and welcome souls home with garlands of flowers and sacrificial altars. Why don’t you return home from the realm of the dead for one day, on “Día de los Muertos”, which is celebrated on November 2nd, but actually in the days before. This tradition, which dates back to pre-Hispanic indigenous cults, has very little in common with the notoriously garish US Halloween. In the meantime, more and more people in Munich are discovering the happy, sometimes bittersweet magic and the attractive symbolism of Día de los Muertos, which UNESCO included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of mankind in 2008. Some examples.

Dance of Death with Latin rhythms

Cumbia comes from cumbé, an African dance that slaves brought to Colombia and from there spread across the continent. Monterrey is the cumbia metropolis of Mexico, that’s where the band comes from kumbia boruka, that maintains the cumbia tradition and mixes it with elements of reggae, dub, African music, rock and even psychedelic into an incredibly electrifying melange. Just the right music for the night of the dead. At Ampere there is a concert and party for Día de los Muertos on Monday, October 31st. Two hours after midnight, however, the spook should be over, because on November 1st, the silent public holiday, dancing is forbidden from 2 a.m. to midnight. Not affected by this is the party in the Isarpost: “Bienvenido al infierno! – Welcome to hell” is the motto on Saturday, October 29, where Día de los Muertos is celebrated in costume as “Halloween Latino”.

Kumbia Boruka, Concert and Party, Mon, Oct. 31, 8 p.m., amp, tickets below www.muffatwerk.deHalloween Latino, Sat., Oct. 29, 11 p.m., Isarpost, Sonnenstraße 24-26, ticket link: https://bit.ly/3LwLyfh

Mariachi songs in the graveyard

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Unlike in the Bond film “Spectre”, where 1,500 extras decked out in masks gather for the chicly choreographed dance of death on Mexico City’s Plaza de la Constitución, the Munich director Doris Dörrie shows the Día de los Muertos completely free of pathos or folklore kitsch. She tells the hard life of the mujeres mariachi, women who struggle daily in the machismo and competitive world of mariachi music and struggle to support their children. In one of the film’s most haunting scenes, the camera follows the mariachi bands into the cemetery on the Day of the Dead, where people gather to clean and decorate graves, eat, and sip tequila. Behind seemingly exuberant happiness, Dörrie looks down on deepest despair when the band plays for a mother who almost collapses over her child’s grave. An almost unbearable moment, also for one of the mariachi singers, who apologizes to the mourners and their family as they walk: “We didn’t want to make you sad with our music.”

“This beautiful shitty life!”, documentary film, Doris Dörrie, 2014, available on streaming services and on DVD

Cute skulls

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They are made of chocolate with sugar icing, the “Calaveras”. Always on Día de los Muertos, Maria de Lourdes González Merino prepares the sweet skulls for the loyal customers who buy from her in the Mercado de México in Neuhausen. The tamales are also ready, they are made from corn dough and are cooked like dumplings. Or mole, a dish made from various dried chillies and chocolate. González Merino, who has been running the delicatessen since 2009, is surprised at how many young people from Mexico, who live here far from their families, maintain the old traditions on this special day.

Mercado de México, delicatessen and arts and crafts from Mexico and South America, Schulstr. 38, Mon. closed, Tues. – Fri. 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., www.demexico.de

Dining in otherworldly company

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They look happily down from the wall at the guests’ plates, brightly dressed skeletons, they seem to be having a great time, drinking and chatting. And not just on the “Day of the Dead”. In the Blitz Restaurant on the Museum Island, you dine all year round in close proximity to this otherworldly carnival troop, which defies all transience. “Since we are a restaurant with Latin American, vegetarian cuisine, the calaveras were an option, they are not only used on Día de los Muertos,” says restaurateur Sandra Forster, explaining the attractive decor of her restaurant, which has long since found its way into the everyday culture and plays with the terror of the macabre. Incidentally, there is no special menu served at the Blitz on November 1st and 2nd.

Blitz Restaurant, Museumsinsel 1, opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 6 p.m. – 1 a.m., phone 38 01 26 560, www.blitz.restaurant

Fiesta mexicana at Hasenbergl

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Mexicans who do not want to lose their roots in their homeland founded the Mexican-German Circle in Bavaria in 1997, Círculo Mexicano-Alemán de Baviera. The association, which also welcomes German members, maintains the traditions of the country and invites you to the cultural center 2411 at Blodigstraße 4 in Hasenbergl on November 6th this year. There, on the 3rd floor, Día de los Muertos is celebrated with everything that goes with it: A decorated home altar with offerings for the deceased will be set up. In Mexican households, long chains of bright orange marigolds always lead from this “offrenda” through the room to the front door, as a signpost for the souls of the dead to return home. The traditional dishes are very important on this day, some of which will also be served in the cultural center, such as “pan de muerto” (bread of the dead), sweet yeast rolls, decorated with two crossing finger bones made of dough. Music and dancing are also part of the funeral service. In the house in the Hasenbergl Trio Las Calaveras and the folk dance group of the Mexican-German Circle. In addition, the skeleton lady “La Catrina”, which is part of every Día de los Muertos, will pay a visit to the festival.

Day of the Dead, celebration of the Mexican-German Circle in Bavaria, Nov. 6, 3 p.m., Kulturzentrum 2411, Blodigstraße 4, non-members 13 euros (adults), 6 euros (children up to twelve years of age), registration via Whatsapp to 0178/2910990 , info below www.circulo-mexicano.de. Another event in Munich: “Death in Mexico”, mythological stories, music and moderation, typical food, Sat., Oct. 29, 7 p.m., Lutherkirche Giesing, Bergstr. 3, registration phone 537102

Frida and Death

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“La Catrina” – in the large mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central” by painter Diego Rivera, she is seen grinning, standing next to Rivera’s wife Frida Kahlo, who is known to have had a special relationship with death after a metal rod pierced her body in a traffic accident. The eerie lady appears again and again in Kahlo’s work: “la muerte”, in Spanish death is female. The famous photograph shows the artist in her sickbed, holding a painted skull with her name on it into the camera. There, to Mexico in Kahlo’s famous Casa Azulin Coyoacán, the show “Un Viva Frida Kahlo”, the first immersive staging of her works, takes visitors as a 360-degree experience. The German premiere is on December 15th at Utopia Munich.

Viva Frida Kahlo – Immersive Experience, Dec. 15 to Feb. 10, 2023, Utopia Munich, Hessstr. 132, Mon. to Sun. 10-21, information at www.utopia-munich.com