Día de los Muertos in San Antonio Runs Through Monday: Esperanza on Sunday, Guadalupe and Centro Aztlan on Monday
After Muertitos Fest's Friday night, the city's Day of the Dead observances continue Sunday at the Esperanza Center and Monday at the Guadalupe and Centro Cultural Aztlan — with the Botanical Garden's 10,000 marigolds in bloom through Monday.
San Antonio's Día de los Muertos does not end with the weekend's first night. With Muertos Fest behind the city and Say Sí's Muertitos Fest staged for Friday night, the observances that define the holiday here run Sunday and Monday across the West Side and beyond, according to the San Antonio Current's guide, read in full this cycle — and most of them are free.
Sunday, November 1, brings the 31st Annual Día de Muertos Celebration at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, free from 4 to 10 p.m. at 816 South Colorado Street: altars made by community members, live conjunto and mariachi performances, MujerArtes clay works, and a neighborhood procession led by danzantes. Monday, November 2, the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center marks 30 years of 'La Vida de los Muertos' at Plaza Guadalupe, free at 5 p.m. at 1327 Guadalupe Street, beginning with a sugar skull and paper flower workshop before a reimagined theatre and dance production fusing local legends with Mexican-American artistry — the center encourages the audience to bring chairs. The same evening, Centro Cultural Aztlan opens its 49th Annual 'Altares y Ofrendas' exhibition, free from 6 to 9 p.m. at 1800 Fredericksburg Road, with live music, a community mercadito and traditional foods; the exhibition then runs through November 12.
Two season-long observances close Monday as well. The San Antonio Botanical Garden's Jardín de las Catrinas — 10,000 marigold flowers planted this year, with local artist Regina Moya's larger-than-life Catrina skeleton sculptures honoring Mexican American heritage — runs during garden hours through November 2 at 555 Funston Place, with regular admission required. And the River Walk's Culinary Spirits program, which turned participating restaurants and bars into a Día de los Muertos tasting trail of specialty cocktails, limited-time dishes and chefs' personal stories, ends its October 2 to November 2 run on Monday. In a city that embraces this holiday like few others in the country, the Current's judgment stands as the guide's frame: the altars, the music and the processions are the point — and this year they run, properly, all the way to the Day of the Dead itself.
