The annual Florida Day of the Dead celebration, inspired by the Día de los Muertos holiday in Mexico, had half as many puppets as usual. The other puppets were ruined when Hammond's Puppet Network studio was flooded. He thought about canceling the event, but the Fort Lauderdale community convinced him that the show must go on.
"I couldn't process how it could go on without having the puppets and sugar skulls made out of papier-mâché," says Hammond, who tears up thinking of the work that was lost. "There was 14 years of stuff gone. How would we immerse people into this experience without all the paraphernalia?"
He adds, "I was amazed at how many people showed up and still celebrated even though we were missing those pieces. A lot of them showed up with their own puppets. They showed up in costumes. The park was full. The Riverwalk was full. The community needed it."
Florida Day of the Dead returns on Saturday, November 2, for its 15th edition. Like in Mexico, the event celebrates dead loved ones with a procession, ofrendas (altars), and sugar skulls. This year's procession starts at Esplanade Park, the site of the event's Folklorico Stage, and goes through the Riverwalk before ending at Backyard with a block party.
Attendees can watch more than a hundred Indigenous and traditional folk dancers on the Folklorico Stage, enjoy traditional Mexican food such as pan de muerto, and have their faces painted sugar skull style by the dozen or so makeup artists on hand.
The big Day of the Dead puppets each take about a year to build, according to Jim Hammond.
Photo by Carina Mask
"One year, some super sweet people came to do a Michael Jackson Thriller flash dance, but that's not what Day of the Dead is," Hammond says. "I remember one guy running up the street with a chainsaw and mask, trying to scare people. I said, 'Do you know what this is?' He said, 'Yes, this is Mexican Halloween.' I said, 'This is not that.'"
Little by little, the community caught on to the true meaning behind Day of the Dead, including the aforementioned chainsaw guy. Hammond believes he returned the very next year with more appropriate sugar skull makeup.
While Hammond has become well-informed about the Day of the Dead celebration and sets out to make the event as authentic as possible, he's never actually attended the famed festivities in Mexico. He did grow up with his Polish grandmother's ofrenda-style altars, which paid tribute to deceased family members.
Hammond has continued that tradition to this day, only now incorporating Day of the Dead elements. He credits the Day of the Dead perspective on death with helping him cope with the loss of loved ones.
"I lost my dad when I was 13," Hammond says. "That pain lived with me until Day of the Dead found me. It still resurfaces every now and then, but without the community, that pain would be with me all the time. I would be drowning in pain rather than celebrating his life.
"One of the hardest things that happened last year was clearing out our shed. My family ofrendas were in there, sitting in water. Saying goodbye to my dad's box of personal items was another element of healing and letting stuff go. Embracing the pain is part of the process. That goddamn flood is the ultimate metaphor of cleansing and letting stuff go."
The puppets, however, are a different story. Hammond plans on re-creating some of the ones that were lost. Because the bigger puppets each take about a year to make, he guesses it could be a decade before the Florida Day of the Dead procession features as many puppets as it used to. Still, this year's Day of the Dead celebration should be business as usual.
"Will this year's event be closer to normal? Yes. Will I be closer to normal? I don't know what normal is," Hammond says, laughing. "I'm a puppeteer."
Florida Day of the Dead. 3 to 8 p.m. Saturday, November 2, at Esplanade Park, 400 SW Second St., Fort Lauderdale; and 4 to 11 p.m. Saturday, November 2, at Revolution Live, 100 SW Third Ave., Fort Lauderdale; dayofthedeadflorida.com. Admission is free.
