Courtesy Photo | Vickie Kelley, founder of Natural State Burial Association, poses in her Day of the Dead costume to promote Death Fest — a series of events designed to educate and entertain the public about green burials and death positivity.
There’s a lot of living to do at this year’s Death Fest in Fayetteville.
The festival, hosted by the Natural State Burial Association, will be host to a series of events from Oct. 23 through Nov. 1 to entertain and inform the public about the death positive movement and the options available for alternative green burials. A lot of the events and workshops are free.
A death-themed book fair, film screening, a death-themed open mic night, cemetery tours and a build-your-own-coffin workshop are just a few of the events planned during the festival. There’s even an opportunity to buy raffle tickets for a handmade pine coffin that functions as a bookshelf until it’s… needed.
Natural State Burial Association is a non-profit organization formed in 2015 with the goal to educate the public about alternative green burials and create and manage Arkansas’ first modern green cemetery. The natural cemetery would be a wildlife nature preserve with trails and gathering spots for the living to pay respects to their deceased loved ones. The graves would be without tombstones, the non-embalmed bodies laid to rest in simple wooden coffins or a shroud, and a magnetic nail is put in a toe along with GPS coordinates for families to locate the body after its been buried. Only flat, native stone markers would be allowed.
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Vickie Kelley, founder of Natural State Burial Association, dances with a fellow party-goer at a Death Fest event.
The group even has its own theme song, “Natural State” by Walter Schmidt, who sings hopes of being one day buried in Arkansas dirt.
“We keep hearing that Fayetteville is such a great place to live,” said Vickie Kelley, founder of the Natural State Burial Association. “We’re here to suggest it’s a wonderful place to die, or at least to be buried. The Ozarks are beautiful, and we hope to find place for a green cemetery here.”
Green burials are about minimizing the environmental impact of funeral practices. Cremations can be costly with the burning of fossil fuels and carbon emissions, and potentially toxic mercury emissions from dental fillings. The burial organization hopes to work with traditional funeral homes in the future for moving toward more sustainable practices that don’t involve embalming and makes use of biodegradable coffins and shrouds, Kelley said.
“If you go into the mortuary, they’re pumping the blood out of the body and flushing it down the toilet and pumping it full of formaldehyde,” she said. “Then they’re putting the formaldehyde in the ground, and which would you rather have for the environment?”
In 2015, the group attempted to start a funeral pyre service that would allow for wood burning open air cremation funerals. The group was met with a cease and desist order from Washington County due to cremation regulations by the Arkansas state board of embalmers and funeral directors, Kelley said.
A few fundraising events centered around death positivity are planned throughout the festival, where the proceeds will go toward the organization’s goal of opening a natural cemetery.
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Two guests at a Death Fest event are dressed as Mexican El Dia de Los Muertos sugar skull catrinas.
A spoken word performance about death, loss and remembrance featuring local poets and writers will take place Friday, Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m. at Bear’s Place, 504 E 15th Street in Fayetteville. Local slam poet Houston Hughes will host the event as well as perform. There’s a $5 entrance fee, or for $10 admission includes a copy of Natural State Burial Association compilation CD It’s Natural: Arkansas Musicians Sing About Livin’ & Dyin’.Anyone interested in performing, or who might like one of their own stories turned into a piece for the event, should e-mail Hughes at HoustonRH7@gmail.com.
Experimental theatre group The Artist’s Laboratory Theatre will host an immersive theatrical performance Saturday, Oct. 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the Fayetteville Senior Center,945 S College Ave. The production will explore the nature of death and dying and will involve the audience in a “special way.” The event is also $5, or $10 for a CD, as well.
On Sunday, Oct. 30, local chefs throughout Northwest Arkansas will be preparing what they would have as their last meal for attendees to dine on. The Last Meal will take place at Teatro Scarpinos, 329 N West Ave. in downtown Fayetteville at 5 p.m. There’s limited seating, and tickets are $45 each, and the price includes a raffle ticket for a handcrafted coffin. Wine and beer will be available at a cash bar. There will also be music provided by Carol Widder on cello and Donna Jean Glascow on keyboards.
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Death Fest, which starts Oct. 23, is a two week long festival based in Fayetteville that seeks to inform the public about alternative green burial methods and promote death positivity.
There’s of course two big celebrations for Halloween and the Day of the Dead, too.
“Cajuns, Costumes and Comedy: One Wicked Halloween Party” will be 5 to 9 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, at the corner of East Ave. and Dickson Street in Fayetteville, Monday, Oct. 31. The $15 admission includes beverages and barbecue, improv comedy from Phunbags, and live music and Cajun dance instructions with Jumpsuit Jamey and the Can’t Wait to Playboys. There is also a costume contest, naturally.
The Tuesday, Nov. 1 Day of the Dead celebration will take place 7:00 p.m. at Teatro Scarpino. The $15 entrance fee includes a performance from Afrique Aya, who will be performing a new program about drums used during the lively funeral procession traditions from the Ivory Coast to celebrate and mourn the passing of relatives.
A full calendar of up-to-date workshops and events is available at deathfest.info.
“We’re saying as a community, bear with us. Let’s not keep our blinders on. People die,” Kelley said. “Someone needs to be there.”
None of the 100 or so traditional cemeteries, where groundskeepers manage the site with gravestones and plots, and the thousands of family and donation-based ones in Arkansas are considered to be natural cemeteries. The Green Burial Council, a nonprofit organization that certifies environmentally sustainable mortuary providers, has certified 46 cemeteries nationwide, and the Funeral Consumers Alliance has 71 green or a hybrid of traditional and green cemeteries.
