STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Children and adults are invited to learn a Mexican folk dance and make paper flowers, flower crowns and sugar skulls during a day of craft making and music on Saturday, Oct. 22.

The free event, sponsored by the Sun Valley Museum of Art, will be held from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at The Hunger Coalition’s Bloom Community Food Center at 110 Honeysuckle St. at Bellevue’s south end.

Craft making will be from 1 to 3 p.m.

Dirce Flores, a professional dancer and teacher who grew up in Oaxaca, Mexico, and now lives in Bellevue, will teach folk dancing using Son Jarocho dance steps at 2 p.m., And Las Cafeteras, a popular Chicano band from East Los Angeles, will provide a short concert of songs in Spanish and English at 3:30 p.m.

The event is part of a month-plus list of events that the SVMoA planned to acquaint the community with elements of Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. The event is held Nov. 1 to 2 in many Spanish-speaking communities to honor the deceased.

The flowers, crowns and sugar skulls made on Saturday will be used to adorn a community altar that will be one of several altars assembled for a free Celebracion de Dia de los Muertos at SVMoA’s Hailey House on Saturday, Oct. 29.

That event will start at noon and will include altar viewing and traditional food offered free of charge. The band Jarabe Mexicano will perform at 1:30 p.m. and students in Dirce Flores’ Mexican folkloric dance class will perform.