Salon Series: Ceremony & Celebration: Vida y Muerte
Sunnylands and Run with Los Muertos will host a salon discussion exploring how various cultures celebrate death through ceremony. This event is part of CV Days of Los Muertos.
In the book 13 Reasons Why, Jay Asher explores aspects of ceremony from the perspective of a group of high school students following the suicide of classmate Hannah Baker. The book was adapted into a popular Netflix Series that aired in 2017 and introduced a large audience to how modern technology is contributing to and changing modern ceremonies. Using the series as an example, panelists will discuss ceremonies in an historical context and how technology is shaping and changing them today.
Speakers include:
Jennifer Scheper – is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Riverside specializing in the history of religion in Latin America with special consideration for the spiritual lives of Mexican and Mexican-American Catholics. Her book, Biography of a Mexican Crucifix: Lived Religion and Local Faith from the Conquest to the Present (Oxford 2010) is a history of popular devotion to images of the suffering Christ in Mexico. Hughes second book, Contagion and the Sacred in Mexico, examines the impact of epidemic disease on the religious lives of indigenous communities. Hughes is the founding co-director of UC Riverside’s Institute for the Study of Immigration and Religion. She has written about the Day of the Dead tradition and is also director and producer of a documentary film, Night of Altars, about the Latino activists who organize Santa Ana’s annual Day of the Dead celebration.
Kristel Laiblin – is an experienced and accomplished film producer and executive. Over the course of her career, Kristel has built a reputation as an exceptional collaborator, problem solver and an endless source of new ideas.
She is currently executive producing the series “Thirteen Reasons Why” at Netflix. This adaptation of the NYT best seller was created by Pulitzer-Prize winning writer Brian Yorkey with Anonymous Content and Paramount TV. Season 2 of the is show currently in production. She recently started as the head of Nuyorican Productions, Jennifer Lopez’s production company, where she is developing both film and television projects.
Kristel was a producer on Children of Men directed by Alfonso Cuarón. The film received two BAFTA awards and was nominated for three Academy Awards. It has been recently listed as one of the top ten best films of the decade on various critics’ lists. She has also been credited as producer on the 20th Century Fox picture In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol and starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy. More recently she produced RZA’s directorial debut, Universal’s Man with the Iron Fists, presented by Quentin Tarantino.
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Alexis Nichols – Alexis Nichols- Born and raised in the Coachella Valley and holds an elected position as Liaison to General Council for Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, where her duties include the preservation of cultural ceremonies, day to day business practices, and Governental services for Cabazon Band of Mission Indians. She also sits as an East Valley Tourism Development Authority Board Member for Fantasy Springs, and is raising two daughters and a son on her family’s reservation located in the East Coachella Valley.
Following the conversation, a mixer will feature music by Cumbia Machin, an Electro-Cumbia project from San Diego, CA.
Light hors d’oeuvres provided by Babe’s Bar-B-Que and Brewhouse.
Reservations required. Purchase tickets at $10 per person here.