The Nadur Carnival is unique among the many manifestations of Carnival. It is not organized by any committee and subsequently no rules apply. Sunset invites a multitude of masked and hooded creatures to throng the streets of Nadur - creatures wearing all kinds of funny and grotesque costumes.
Carnival is a Western Christian and Greek Orthodox festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide. Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent. Traditionally, butter, milk, and other animal products were not consumed "excessively", rather, their stock was fully consumed as to reduce waste. Pancakes, donuts, and other desserts were prepared and eaten for a final time. During Lent, animal products are no longer eaten, and individuals have the ability to give up a certain object or activity of desire.
Costume is the distinctive style of dress of an individual or group that reflects their class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch.
Nadur is a small locality with a population of 4500, on the island of Gozo - the sister island of Malta - in the middle of the Mediterranean about 50km south of Sicily. It is run by a Local Council with 5 elected members: the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and 3 Councilors with one full-time Executive Secretary.
Nadur is a village in Gozo, Malta. It had a population of 4509 as of March 2014.
Gozo, known locally as Għawdex and in antiquity as Gaulos, is an island of the Maltese archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. The island is part of Malta. After the island of Malta itself, it is the second-largest island in the archipelago. Compared to its southeastern neighbour, Gozo is more rural and known for its scenic hills, which are featured on its coat of arms.
Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km (50 mi) south of Italy, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia, and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya. With a population of about 475,000 over an area of 316 km2 (122 sq mi), Malta is the world's tenth smallest and fifth most densely populated country. Its capital is Valletta, which is the smallest national capital in the European Union by area at 0.8 km². The official languages are Maltese and English, with Maltese officially recognised as the national language and the only Semitic language in the European Union.
Besides the religious feast of St. Peter & St. Paul, known locally as "L-Imnarja" held on 29 June and which lasts a whole week, Nadur is also famous for its annual revelry held on the 5 days preceding Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.
Ash Wednesday is a Christian holy day of prayer and fasting. It is preceded by Shrove Tuesday and falls on the first day of Lent, the six weeks of penitence before Easter. Ash Wednesday is traditionally observed by Western Christians. Most Latin Rite Roman Catholics observe it, as do some Protestants like Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, some Reformed churches, Baptists, Nazarenes and Independent Catholics.
Lent is a solemn religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends approximately six weeks later on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter Sunday. The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer for Easter through prayer, doing penance, mortifying the flesh, repentance of sins, almsgiving, and denial of ego. This event is observed in the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Oriental Orthodox, Reformed, and Roman Catholic Churches. Some Anabaptist and evangelical churches also observe the Lenten season.
The creativity of all those taking part and the many visitors have earned it other names such as the Spontaneous Carnival, Grotesque or Macabre Carnival.
Since at least the 18th century, grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus is often used to describe weird shapes and distorted forms such as Halloween masks. In art, performance, and literature, however, grotesque may also refer to something that simultaneously invokes in an audience a feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as sympathetic pity. More specifically, the grotesque forms on Gothic buildings, when not used as drain-spouts, should not be called gargoyles, but rather referred to simply as grotesques, or chimeras.
In works of art, macabre is the quality of having a grim or ghastly atmosphere. The macabre works to emphasize the details and symbols of death. The term also refers to works particularly gruesome in nature.
In 2005 the Nadur Carnival was the World Carnival Capital by virtue of hosting the largest ever gathering of international Carnival dignitaries and organizers for the global Carnival City summit organized by the Federation of European Carnival Cities
The Federation of European Carnival Cities (FECC) was founded in 1980 and has been registered in the Court of Luxembourg. Member cities, organization and individual members are engaged in producing popular celebrations or carnivals which represent an authentic masquerade or parade of a people's cultural identity. The General membership meets twice each year generally at the end of May and in October.
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In architecture, a gargoyle is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing rainwater from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between. Architects often used multiple gargoyles on a building to divide the flow of rainwater off the roof to minimize the potential damage from a rainstorm. A trough is cut in the back of the gargoyle and rainwater typically exits through the open mouth. Gargoyles are usually an elongated fantastical animal because the length of the gargoyle determines how far water is directed from the wall. When Gothic flying buttresses were used, aqueducts were sometimes cut into the buttress to divert water over the aisle walls.
Rex is a New Orleans Carnival Krewe which stages one of the city's most celebrated parades on Mardi Gras Day. Rex is Latin for "King", and Rex reigns as "The King of Carnival".
The Quebec Winter Carnival, commonly known in both English and French as Carnaval, is a pre-Lenten festival held in Quebec City. After being held intermittently since 1894, the Carnaval de Québec has been celebrated annually since 1955. That year Bonhomme Carnaval, the mascot of the festival, made his first appearance. Up to one million people attended the Carnaval de Québec in 2006 making it, at the time, the largest winter festival in the world.
The Culture of Saint Lucia blends the influences of African, French, and English heritage. The official language of the island is English but Kreole, a form of French patois, remains an influential secondary language. The people are predominantly Catholic but the religious climate is tolerant.
The carnival in Colombia was introduced by the Spaniards. The Colombian carnival has incorporated elements from European culture, and has managed to syncretise, or re-interpret, traditions that belonged to the African and Amerindian cultures of Colombia. There is documentary evidence that the carnival existed in Colombia in the 17th century and had already caused concern to the colonial authorities, who censored the celebrations, especially in the main centers of power such as Cartagena, Bogotá and Popayán. The carnival, therefore, continued its evolution and re-interpretation in the small and at that time unimportant towns where celebrations did not offend the ruling elites. The result was the uninterrupted celebration of carnival festivals in Barranquilla, and other villages along the lower Magdalena River in northern Colombia, and in Pasto, Nariño in the south of the country. In modern times, there have been attempts to introduce the carnival in the capital, Bogotá, in the early 20th century, but it has always failed to gain the approval of authorities. The Bogotá Carnival has had to wait until the 21st century to be resurrected, this time, by the authorities of the city. Colombia is recognized by its large variety of festivals, carnivals and fairs. Most towns have their own, ranging from those celebrating coffee to the ones held in honor of the town's Saint feast. The common characteristics of the festivals are the nomination of a beauty Queen and the setting up of public dance floor.
Kurentovanje is one of Slovenia's most popular and ethnologically significant carnival events. This 10-day rite of spring and fertility is celebrated on Shrove Sunday in Ptuj, the oldest documented city in the region, and draws around 10,000 participants each year.
The Antiguan Carnival is a celebration of the emancipation of slavery in the country held annually from the end of July to the first Tuesday in August. The most important day is that of the j'ouvert, in which brass and steel bands perform for much of the island's population. Barbuda's Carnival, held in June, is known as Caribana. The Antiguan and Barbudan Carnivals replaced the Old Time Christmas Festival in 1957, with hopes of inspiring tourism in Antigua and Barbuda. Some elements of the Christmas Festival remain in the modern Carnival celebrations.
The MassKara Festival is an annual festival with highlights held every fourth Sunday of October in Bacolod, Philippines. The most recent festival was held October 8-28, 2018. The festival sites include the Bacolod Public Plaza, the Lacson Tourism Strip and the Bacolod Government Center.
Carnival has had an important place on the Maltese cultural calendar for just under five centuries, having been introduced to the Islands by Grand Master Piero de Ponte in 1535.
The grotesque body is a concept, or literary trope, put forward by Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin in his study of François Rabelais' work. The essential principle of grotesque realism is degradation, the lowering of all that is abstract, spiritual, noble, and ideal to the material level. Through the use of the grotesque body in his novels, Rabelais related political conflicts to human anatomy. In this way, Rabelais used the concept as "a figure of unruly biological and social exchange".
Colombian folklore are beliefs, customs and cultural traditions in Colombia.
The Rijeka Carnival is held each year before Lent in Rijeka, Croatia. Established in 1982, it has become the biggest carnival in Croatia.
St Pauls Carnival is an annual African Caribbean carnival held, usually on the first Saturday of July, in St Pauls, Bristol, England. The celebration began life in 1968 as the St Pauls Festival, when the idea was "to create an event to help improve relationships between the European, African, Caribbean and Asian inhabitants of the area." Called the St Pauls Carnival since 1991, the event includes a masquerade procession with highly ornate and colourful costumes and floats from local schools and cultural associations, a stage for professional performers, sound systems in neighbouring streets and a range of stalls selling food from a wide range of cultures. In the preceding period Mas camps create costumes for the parade and there is a week of cultural events in the days before carnival.
Eis-zwei-Geissebei is a Carnival festival held in Rapperswil (Switzerland) on Shrove Tuesday.
A variety of customs and traditions are associated with Carnival celebrations in the German-speaking countries of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. They can vary considerably from country to country, but also from one small region to another. This is reflected in the various names given to these festivities occurring before Lent.
The Parti Municipal (PM) was a political party that existed from 1990 to 2001 in the suburban community of Saint-Leonard in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It dominated the city's political life throughout its existence.
The Carnival of Aalst or Aalst Carnival is a yearly three-day event in the Belgian city of Aalst. It is recognised by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The carnival is celebrated in the days preceding Ash Wednesday. It is mainly a street happening; the celebrants dance on the city squares and visit café after café.
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