The attention will be focused on wassailing, which is a multifaceted show throughout Romania, co-created by words, music, motion, dance and artistic performances.
During wassailing, a village turns into a big stage serving multiple roles as the carnival develops, enabling a group of young boys to play their parts. They are merely the main collective actor in wider socio-dramatic action, where men, women and fantastic beings perform in various ways. The village is not only a stage; it can also be an audience, actor, director or dramatist. The villagers are usually aware that they are creating a show, a carnival performance, and that they are part of it.
Wassailing with the “Goat”
Mimetic plays with an animal mask as the main prop can be found throughout the world and are very diverse; they often appear in Central and Eastern Europe as well.
The goat mask is one of the most widespread; it is related to a character called “rourita” or “blind man”, whose existence in Europe is attested even in ancient times.
Rituals, myths and legends from the Daco-Romanian area are part of the hunter culture, but “a hunter ideology can become a pastoral ideology”, as explained by Mircea Eliade, one of the most prominent Romanian anthropologists.
In the Carpathian lands along the Danube, the image of an animal, achieved by dressing as one and performing a simple show, represents aspects from the lives of animals living in the region. The theatrical image of the goat, however, represents a mythological animal that is separated from reality and normally serves as an abstract symbol for soil fertility.
Coordinator: Ioanna-Carmen Jieanu, PhD, Faculty of Arts