Carnival
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When we started to look for a potential theme for an IFTR conference to be held in Cologne, we were looking for a topic that would combine a local reference with a global and transcultural perspective. Carnival soon came to mind as Cologne is widely known for its extensive tradition of this festivity.
The allure of Carnival is a promise: The promise of joy and merriment, the indulgence of sensual pleasures – transgressing necessities and rational measurement.
In this sense, Carnival clearly has a global and transcultural dimension: From antiquity onwards, festivals of masquerade, overabundance, mocking of social and hierarchical structures can be found across regions, religions, societies and historical constellations. It is a genuinely global phenomenon in a plethora of forms. And of course, Carnival has a long theatrical genealogy: The medieval shrovetide plays in Northern Europe, Venetian performances and masquerades, up to traditions of Clowns and jesters in comedy, circus, and puppetry.
Carnival’s hallmark is the temporary dispense of the regular order, leaving behind the gravity of mundane concerns and rationales and strategies. In contrast to literary utopias, Carnival is essentially a physical and sensual experience – thus the performance is its default mode of existence.
We invite IFTR 2025 to join us next in Cologne to reflect on the Carnivalesque across cultures and political fields, in its historical dimension and its contemporary meaning.
As a starting point, we have chosen three key-words:
Ekstasis – the Greek word transpiring a sense of syncopation and displacement, literally meaning »outside of oneself«. Broader than the contemporary ecstasy, Ekstasis also points to the darker side of carnival, the ambivalence of indulgence and violence, enjoyment and anarchy.
Subversion – turning the world upside down, mocking the dominant power structures, offering a smack of a world that is radically different from everyday-life experience. Thus, many protest movements have been carnivalesque forms and strategies to make themselves visible and audible. But one must not too easily fall for harmonizing conflicts: is Carnival a mere surrogate for substantial change and thus only stabilizes the existing system?
Metamorphosis – dressing up, changing one’s identity, »in die Haut eines/r Anderen schlüpfen« [to be in someone’s skin/ be in someone’s shoes]. As Bachtin has pointed out in this reflection of the Grotesque, the metamorphosis of Carnival projects a radical difference from the Western model of identity and corporeal restraint of the civilized body. It is one of the paradoxes of Carnival that the covering of the Mask offers a liberation for an alternative self.
Carnival is not merely naïve merriment or a pure escape from the hardships of reality – we hope you will join us next year to explore these complexities.
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