page_title: Mexico City Alebrije Parade
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Mexico City Alebrije Parade / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Alebrije named Coleccionista de Miradas at the beginning of the parade in the Zocalo
context_page_description: The Mexico City Alebrije Parade is an annual event to honor Mexican handcrafts and folk art, especially a hard kind of papier-mâché called “cartonería” and the creation of fantastic figures with it called “alebrijes.” Alebrijes are chimera-like creatures credited to artisan Pedro Linares painted in bright colors. The alebrijes for the parade are larger than anything Linares created, up to four meters in height and three meters in width. The parade begins on midday on a Saturday in late October in the historic center of Mexico City. The giant creatures are accompanied by musicians, clowns, people in costume and more, giving the event a Carnival-like atmosphere. After the parade the creations are judged with prizes awarded. There are also related literary and musical compositions.
context_section_description: The annual event was begun in 2007 by the Museo de Arte Popular (MAP) with the purpose of establishing a Mexico City tradition related to valuing Mexican handcrafts and folk art.  The reason that alebrijes were chosen for the event is that their wild shapes and colors create surprise for both Mexicans and foreigners, according to Museo de Arte Popular director Walther Boelsterly. Some of the first participants include Arturo Caballero, Felipe Linares and Arte en Papel. To date, it has succeeded in becoming a tradition for October, shortly before Day of the Dead.
  Each year since its founding, the event has grown.  During the first four years, 392 alebrijes were created for the event, with 3,600 people participating in their creation. The first year saw the participation of over forty alebrijes, with sizes ranging from thirty centimeters to four meters in height. This grew to over eighty in 2008, over 200 in 2010 about that many in 2011. About the same number of alebrijes participated in 2012, but with about 6,600 people creating the alebrijes for that year alone. During its first four years, the parade has over seven million spectators watching live or on television with six million watching in 2011.  The creations have been as tall as 4.2 meters and as wide as three meters, transported to the event by their creators. There have been cases when the resulting alebrije was so big and heavy, the participants could not bring it to be on parade or displayed.
  When the event was created in 2007, two other competitions for the creation of short stories and puppet shows about alebrijes were also begun. This was followed in 2008 but a musical competition. In 2011, there were ninety five literary entries: seventy seven short stories and eighteen scripts.
  In 2010, the theme of the event was the heroes of the Mexican War of Independence and Mexican Revolution whose 200th and 100th anniversaries were celebrated that year. In 2010, the alebrijes included the visages of Miguel Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende, José María Morelos y Pavón, Francisco Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Victoriano Huerta, Porfírio Díaz, Agustín de Iturbide and others. In 2010, the winners were “La Patria es Primero” by Alejandro Camacho Barrera in first place, “Si Adelita se fuera con otro” by Daniel Macias Camacho in second place and “El Masiosare” by Hugo Orozco Flores in third place.
  The success of the event has spawned a similar event at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) in 2011 for students and professors. The difference with this event is that the alebrije have moving robotic parts, lights and more, but with the same purpose of promoting Mexican handcrafts. The same year, three of these robotic alebrijes called Agui-burro, P-Esime Pezadilla and Cyber-burro participated in the MAP event as well.
caption: Alebrije named Coleccionista de Miradas or Gaze Collector
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