Festival do Entroido 2010 / Carnival Festival 2010

As every year, we've organised a Carnival Festival at school, on 12th February. Everybody was invited to disguise and participate.

Here you have several photographs of this event. Take a look at them; maybe you recognise people you already know ...

Carnival Mask Contest

The Winners

CARNIVAL 2010

Carnival Masks Contest

· All students can take part.
· Each participant can only present one mask.
· Any technique can be used (beads, paper, colours, etc.)
· Deadline: Wednesday, 12th February at Arts Room
· The High School gets the copyright of the selected masks, which will be shown at the Meeting Room.

Arts Department



by Juliana Ortega Cimiano

The carnivals in Walloony

The " Blancs Moussis" of Stavelot

The Carnivals in Walloony

1. The carnival in Tilff

The carnival in Tilff offers a double nature: it is, at the same time, a street carnival and a procession.
It’s a street carnival if you take into account that:
- in the afternoon, while waiting for the procession, small groups of masked and disguised people nicely worry and tease the audience, inviting the people to join in actively;
- during the procession, some more boisterous people entertain the crowd: they choose people in the audience and make them join in their jokes and tricks;
- in the evening, you’ll see a mass party with the “ cramignon”, especially with the burning of the witch;
- the whole day, children an adults battle with confetti’s.
It’s a procession because of the demonstration of the floats and companies in front of the grand-stand. In the carnival of Tilff, you’ll also find two famous tendencies: an old one which was to entertain the local community and a new one which assures a show.
Finally, Tilf presents an elected Prince, whose clothes are more similar to those of a 16 th century marquis than to those of the Rhenish Princes.
The carnival in Tilff is also influenced by the spirit of Liège. The rebellious spirit is always ready to catch the facts in the news to make jokes, and to mock them.
It’s in a nice way that the inhabitants of Tilff express their feelings. At the carnival of Tilff, you “feel at home”.

2. The carnival in Malmédy

It’s a very old carnival, which is still called “Cwarmê” (or Quarmai), from its old Latin name. The “Cwarmê” lasts four days and takes place just before the Ash Wednesday: from noon on Saturday until midnight on Shrove Tuesday.
A document dated 25 June 1459 refers to Mondays and Tuesdays of the “Cwarmê” but this carnival probably already existed long before that date. On the four Thursdays before the carnival, people disguise themselves. Those Shrove Thursdays are already mentioned in a document dating of 1666, which tells the story of a young girl whose linen mask caught fire.
But in 1695, and many time afterwards, in the 18th and 19th century, the priest-princes banned this carnival. Of course, the inhabitants of Malmédy didn’t agree and went over this banning.
In the 20 th century, there only three pieces of banning; from 1914 to 1919 and from 1940 to 1945, because of the 2 World Wide Wars, but also in 1962, because of a smallpox epidemic.
In the 19 th century, the carnival became more structured with the birth of companies also called “banes” (= bands).
Another very important characteristic of this carnival is that everything which is said or sung at the “Cwarmê” is in Walloon.

3. The carnival of Stavelot

1502: birth of the “Blancs Moussis” (= White Guys)
The reigning priest-prince forbad the religious to join in the popular party. The crowd wanted to refer to the happy and regretted presence of the monks by disguising themselves with clothes that looked like their outfit. After another banning, only one disguise, a white one, will always remind the monastic outfit. A laughing mask and a long nose will complete the outfit.
This legend is now commonly admitted but it took shape in 1947 and structuralized in brotherhoods thanks to Walter Fostier, sometimes called the creator of this pseudo-historical fantasy. Friend of Stavelot and of its folklore, he will create in 1950 a magnificent grant-knighthood.
This decade saw a great folkloric and touristic development. A great amount of associations made of the “Laetare” one of the most important part of the Walloon and European folklore (40000 people in 1954).
The particularity of the “Laetare” of Stavelot is that the whole city took part in its creation. Those associations walk in the streets and create a procession of more than 2000 participants, most of them from Stavelot. One inhabitant out of three joins in actively. Really, Stavelot is the capital city of the “Laetare”.

The carnival of Malmédy

Carnivals and bonfires in Walloony

Carnivals and bonfires in Walloony

Each year Carnivals liven up many places in Walloony. Each one with its own costumes and music. The time before Lent is the scene of colourfoul carnivals.
Bonfires are lit everywhere in Walloony at the end of winter. They are meant to purify and protect the community. Many of them burn ‘Winter Man’ to celebrate revival. The most famous one takes place in Bouge (Namur) where 7 bonfires are lit, which light up the whole valley.

BONFIRES
Bonfires are one of our most ancient customs, that goes back to the dawn of time and has never faded because it still perpetuates today in our villages.
As you know, Celto-German peoples from the North purified through fire and celebrated the spring equinox (on 21st March) by lighting bonfires on the highest hills.
In the Middle Ages, masked Carnival celebrations took place in the Lent time (Latin “Quadragesima”, 40) that lasts from Ash Wednesday till Easter Day and on this occasion, each village lit its bonfire on the Sunday following Shrove Tuesday.
Depending on the community, the custom still exists in many different ways.
The celebration begins with wood collection.
The local festival committee, helped with the youth, collects wood and the ‘tithe’ in the village streets with carts, brass band and ‘strolling bar’. The ‘harvest’ is brought to a given place to set and light the stake.
A pole is pitched in the middle of it and a straw dummy representing ‘Winter Man’ is set on it. On Sunday following Shrove Tuesday, a mascarade procession walks through the streets of the village and at downfall they all gather around the stake.
The newly weds are asked to light the fire and when it blazes up, everybody dances around it on the music of the drums and the band until there is only a pile of red ashes left.

In Sprimont (near Aywaille)

The bonfire takes place at an essential period on the year: the end of winter, and so the end of the long evenings in front of the fireplace. It represents the beginning of a new season, a new cycle and the resumption of agricultural activities. Soil and men have to regenerate. The bonfire has a purifying and regenarating power. Tradition has it that the ‘macrale’ (a witch) is responsible for all excess and misdeeds humans are victims of.
She is going to be condemned and burnt on the stake. Then she would go back to the afterlife, reconstruct living strength and send it back to humans.
This tradition remains a privileged link with our past and our ancestors. It is an evidence of their life and thoughts. Giving this tradition a fundamental value today means reinforcing the union of our local communities and giving people a cultural identity.
A few weeks before these events, a tractor fitted with a trailer rides through the streets of Sprimont and in the neighbourhood. The ‘fire raisers-to-be’ put on it the Christmas trees and other resinous waste left on the doorsteps. This wood is brought to the Tultay plain and will be used to set the stake. On Saturdays preceding the party, the collected wood is placed around a fifteen meter high pole thanks to a grab.
On the big day, an army of volunteers put up the stands where various delights will be prepared and served: ‘pékèts’, beer, pancakes, glühwein, sausages, soup...
In the background, the ‘macrale’ adorns herself with her finest clothes to live her last moments.

The trial of the ‘Macrale’
As mentioned above, the macrale is responsible for all the illnesses and evils affecting the village, its inhabitants and even the neighbourhood: thefts, fires, misfortunes or calamities, political blunders... She’s got a lot on her conscience!! She’s said to be close to the sort of people (even famous ones) one shouldn’t associate with!!
She’ll be sentenced (in Walloon) for all her evils and noone doubts the sentence will be terrible: the stake! Presumption of guilt exists here!

Preparing our Carnival Festival - Our "Meco"

The "Meco" is something very typical of the Carnival in Ourense. So that we had to have one, too. It is a sort of mascot of our entroido ('carnival' in Galician). Now he hangs at the top of a mast on our schoolyard. From above he witnesses all the carnival happenings at our school.

The pupils of 4º E together with their teacher Hortensia Alonso were the responsible persons who have prepared our own Meco.

Here you can see some pictures taken during its elaboration.

CARNIVAL IN OURENSE

Carmen Ogando - Entroido en Ourense (English version)

"A CASA DO TERROR 2009"

a
The 3rd edition of “A Casa do Terror 2009” (House of Terror, 2009), a performance-show which has always taken place in our youth centre in Ourense, Casa da Xuventude, and counted with the sponsorship of the Concellaría de Xuventude do Concello (Municipal Council - Department of Youth Services) of Ourense. All in all 40 participants, actors and technicians of different drama groups and audio-visual associations took an active part in its representation from the 18th to 20th december 2009. It was an intense activity. The staging presented an orphanage of girls where surprises, fear and scariness were constant features spectators could experience in each of the various representations. Congratulations to all perfomers!!!!

Here you have some pictures of this event:


Roi López Blanco