Monarch Butterfly Festival To Celebrate Mexican Culture At Camera Park

GLENDALE HEIGHTS, IL — Mexican culture will take center stage at the Monarch Butterfly Festival in Glendale Heights. Planned for Aug. 2 and Aug. 3, the festival features live music and folkloric dance, traditional Mexican food, equestrian performances and more.

Below is peek at the activities for each day of Monarch Butterfly Festival.

Aug. 2

• Opening ceremony
• Iza de Bandera Mexican songs with Maricela Suarez
• Cuadra el Fierro dancing horse performance
• Aztec Dance Calpulli Ocelot-Chihuacoatl
• Sones de México Ensemble
• Mexican Folkloric Ballet
• Banda Super Ranchera

Aug. 3

• TOXI-KA
• Amnesia
• Zeus performs
• Project 7, Salsa Orchestra
• Los CORB
• Endorphyna
• The Circus
• Sones de México Ensemble

Sunday's headliner, Sones de México Ensemble, is a Chicago-based collective that performs traditional Mexican music, with a focus on regional styles, including son jarocho, huapango, Chilean and others.

“True Culture must raise the fist of the soul against the often banal status-quo of suburban life, subordination to technology and suburban alienation. The Dupage Monarch Festival with its radical, people-centered, colorful, community approach counters this banality very much," Cristobal Cavazos of Immigrant Solidarity DuPage said in a statement.

He added, "Beyond entertainment and 'taco art' like kitschy art made to sell tacos and or commodities, the Monarch Festival seeks to overthrow the suburban, boring, comfort zone... building culture, artists and community instead. Surrounding festival goers with smells, sounds and sights here, we create new sensibility, create new relationships, invest in the arts and break racial divides. Maybe it's as easy as the dance-- this is the festival where people get up out of their seats and move!"

What: Monarch Butterfly Festival

When: Aug. 2 and Aug. 3 from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Where: Camera Park, 101 E. Fullerton Ave., Glendale Heights