Known to Mondavi Center audiences for Christmas season performances of Fiesta Navidad, Mariachi los Camperos de Nati Cano is ready to celebrate another holiday at UC Davis: Day of the Dead.

The fiesta of mariachi music and dancing in the Mondavi Center's Jackson Hall is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Halloween night, Oct. 31.

Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, is traditionally celebrated Nov. 1 and 2 in Mexico and in parts of Central America and the United States. The holiday has roots going back to rituals practiced by indigenous people at least 3,000 years ago. For the Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations, death was not the end of life, but only the end of earthly existence and a kind of rebirth into the afterlife.

Today, Dia de los Muertos coincides with Roman Catholicism's All Saints Day and All Souls Day, and involves visiting the graves of loved ones with candles and flowers, and often gifts and food for the deceased are placed on the graves.

The Mondavi Center's Day of the Dead Fiesta is billed as a stage representation of several aspects of these traditional festivities, featuring the folk dance troupe Danza Teoctl and the nine-member Mariachi los Camperos de Nati Cano.

A display of Day of the Dead art is planned in the Mondavi Center lobby, with the art on loan from La Raza Galeria de Posada in Sacramento. Fiestagoers are encouraged to get into the spirit of the event with appropriate costumes.

Tickets: (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787, or www.mondaviarts.org. A Day of the Dead Fiesta school matinee is set for 11 a.m. Oct. 31; educators and others interested in purchasing tickets should call (530) 754-4689.