Families in search of free and educational entertainment between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Sunday are invited to La Fiesta de Guadalupe at DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun, 6300 N. Swan Road.
The annual festival observes the feast day of Mexico's patron saint with performances by Mariachi Milagro Juvenil, Ballet Folklorico Tapatio and Rio Rico Folkloric Dance Club, said Susan Vance, the gallery's marketing director.
The Rio Rico Folkloric Dance Club is composed of elementary school students, the youngest performers, Vance said. Last year was their first time to perform at the event.
"They were very popular," Vance said.
The festival has been held annually for the past four years. It was held yearly before that until parking problems caused the gallery to suspend it for a while, Vance said. But all of that has been fixed, she said.
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Returning to this year's festival are the Las Posadas procession presented by students from Carrillo Intermediate Magnet School and a Yaqui deer dance ceremony, Vance said.
"The Las Posadas procession is really popular. These are the same kids that do it Downtown every year," she said. They were unable to attend last year's fiesta.
The Yaqui deer dance ceremony also was missing last year, Vance said.
The ceremony is sacred, and no photography or recording is allowed. A dancer wearing a headdress depicting a deer's head imitates the movements of a hunted deer.
The day also will feature treat-filled piñatas hoisted every hour. And after the Las Posadas procession to the Mission in the Sun — which is on the gallery property — luminarias will be lit around the mission roof.
Ted DeGrazia, the Tucson artist for whom the gallery is named and whose work the gallery features, began celebrating the feast day in 1952 with friends from the Pascua Yaqui village who helped him build the Mission in the Sun. He dedicated the mission to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Vance wrote in an e-mail.
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