Milwaukee's Day of the Dead Parade 2016

The Day of the Dead parade was held in Milwaukee today. It's something we look forward to every year. This year's celebration was especially nice because we had, unbelievably enough, nearly 70 degree weather! So it was a comfortable day to be walking around. We started in a park, waiting for the parade to begin. There was lots of good people watching, as you can imagine! That photo above, which is one of my favorites, is of one of the belly dancers.

Check out her earring:

I'm starting with pics of just the belly dancers.

I haven't seen such pretty, flower-filled hairstyles since Ren Faire!

There was a male gypsy type dude with the ladies.

He had a gold embroidered vest on. Someone with a cool tote walked into this pic, and I like the patterns together. I realized that he had an elephant on his vest, but I just noticed there's an elephant on the tote too.

At the front of the parade were these two:

One is what I interpreted as a ghost bride.

So pretty! I like the sequins in her veil.

The other? I'm not sure, but she looked cool. I think I had the same flowers on my witch hat this year as she had on her headdress and staff!

There were so many colorful skeletons out for the parade, many of them were cute child skeletons.

I didn't even notice this guy in the background at the time. It's fun to get photos home and look at the details, and there are plenty of details in these!

The skeleton mask in the front is a design I haven't seen before. It looks like maybe cut paper or lace? I like how delicate it is. At first I thought the face was painted on.

Love this kid's expression:

A couple of those cool floral up do's:

Some Aztec dancers were performing when we arrived at the park, but there was such a big crowd around them that we couldn't see what was going on. This little dancer is the only one I saw after the show. Cute little skeleton leggings.

These are pics I took while we were standing around waiting for the parade to begin.

There were some tents with artists selling their work.

I think I might be seeing more of the same flowers as the ones on my witch hat here.

There were a few decorated frames you could take your picture with. A man walked up and nicely offered to take one of us.

This guy was walking around saging the area. A few people were. There were so many smells and different sources of smoke going. I think I still smell faintly of it. It smells good as smoke goes.

On the way back to the car, we ran into the parade coming back to the park.

A signaling skeleton bicyclist.

Passing a house near where we were parked, we saw some hanging Halloween decorations.

I haven't seen these before.

Back in the car, we passed this Halloween costume inspiration on a billboard:

For some reason, it took me a while to get the joke. Some time later I blurted out "Oh, like a cheese wedge!" OK. Haha. Think this will be the hot costume for 2016? Probably not in our climate, unless this guy plans to wear a coat over that. Although, we are having that unseasonably warm weather...

I'm going to end this post by sharing a cute animation I found, "Night of the Day of the Dead"

Pretty good animation! It reminds me of some skeleton puppets I've seen.

Day of the Dead celebrations 2014

This past weekend my mom and I went to the Day of the Dead celebrations in Milwaukee. You might remember my previous blog posts about these events. There's a parade, gallery show, and dance performance. People show a lot of creativity in their appearance and tributes to loved ones.

We saw something cool the minute we parked! It didn't have anything to do with the Day of the Dead, but it still needed to be photographed. This big witchy cat was on a circus cats van.

She's a little bit scary from this angle.

Before the parade, people waited in a decorated park. Paper mache skeletons, altars, and signs surrounded the group.

These skulls were 3D and double sided.

A half skull look:

This woman added some magic and mystery to the parade. She's carrying incense and the smoke was trailing behind her. This incense was pretty strong, because the scent of it was in my (washed) hair for days.

I love the way her blue eyes match the painted flowers on her face. Her eyes became such a part of her makeup that I had to do a double take to see if her eyes were open or if they were closed. I didn't notice until now that her eyes are the center of the flowers. I was taking these photos so fast and there are so many details, that I didn't catch some things until I got home and looked closer.

Part of one of the altars that was in the park:

The parade started and wrapped around what I think was 15 or so blocks.

I had a major zoom going on my camera because I was photographing the parade from far away. So accidentally, I ended up with some close-up portraits of people. These ended up being some of my favorite photos of the day:

Since the parade wrapped around many blocks, we had a choice of following behind it or cutting around to where it would end up. We decided to go to the finish because then we could see the parade head-on. While waiting for the parade to come back around, we looked in a few shop windows. There was this little skeleton/pumpkin man. The Spanish moss looked like a beard to me.

There was also a dressed up skeleton couple in the window.

I like how the buildings are reflected in these photos. It's like the skeleton is floating in a street scene.

The female skeleton had some snazzy shoes.

I'm not sure what this business was. A cake shop or wedding photographer? They also had a spider covered cake with a voodoo doll topper in the window.

The parade came back around the corner...

There were drummers:

Watch that tall skeleton in the back.

Take a peek under that skull. I thought he seemed extra tall! I'm still smiling looking at this picture.

A bird or a fish skeleton?

I love this photo! She was wearing a hat covered in felt flowers and one of those face masks like you'd wear on a motorcycle or to protect yourself from the wind. That sly look in her eye is the finishing touch.

A cute, warm little skeleton and a nice, happy skeleton:

I like how far away this woman is in my picture. There's all this stark, white space around her so she really stands out. There's something direct about it.

This was part of a moving skeleton sculpture on top of a car. It could spin and move around.

After watching the parade, we went inside the Walker's Point Center for the Arts. On the windows were paintings of skulls and monarch butterflies.

Papel Picado was hanging from the ceiling.

The gallery was full of ofrendas and Day of the Dead art.

I loved this! There are so many details to look at. Be sure to click on these photos to see them larger.

There are birds in the halo around the cat's head. What do you think that means?

A more traditional display:

A colorful, artistic tribute:

A miniature skeleton band:

After looking in the gallery we went back to the park to see the Aztec dance performance.

I like those skulls sewn onto their clothing.

Waiting to perform:

Cuteness:

I ended up catching this guy's face between the feathers on a headdress.

 

 

This lady was on stilts.

I hope you enjoyed looking at this year's photos. Every year is different, but we can always count on seeing bright colors, beautiful clothing, and meaningful tributes. I feel so fortunate to be able to witness these celebrations.