The mask beyond the scene. Scientific proceedings international Symposium «Dialogue among cultures. Carnivals in the world» (Firenze-Viareggio, 3-7 febbraio 2016). Ediz. italiana e inglese - 9788893640411

The mask beyond the scene. Scientific proceedings international Symposium «Dialogue among cultures. Carnivals in the world» (Firenze-Viareggio, 3-7 febbraio 2016). Ediz. italiana e inglese: The popular traditions, based on disguises, have their origins in ancient festivals, which are very different among them. In these artistic events there is a large opening to human sentiments and thoughts: they are meetings where all peoples converge with their social, ethnic, economic, polit-ical and religious differences. In these traditional celebrations the daily life is built on imagina-tion, on games and it allows a continuous enrichment and ex-change of cultural knowledge. These urban festivals allow to build forms of art often unique. Among these artistic events we identify the Carnival, a city festival that, in the West, has origin in ancient ceremonies of the Greek and the Roman period. These traditions are survivals of ancient purification rituals. However today the Carnival has become a symbol of meetings that take place in public spaces of the city where you can meet people with different cultural backgrounds. All this allows to en-joy and share traditional and artistic expressions of different cultures in large festivals with in-teresting diversities. The 1st International Symposium, Dialogue among cultures. Carnivals in the worlds has offered a reflection on the international Value of Intangible Heritage as defined by UNESCO: practices, representations, knowledge and techniques that facilitate a strong sense of cultural identity (UNESCO, Declaration of 2003) among the communities, groups and individu-als. This Cultural Heritage can be appreciated in different sectors of human activity: art, eco-nomics, sociology, anthropology, architecture, engineering, etc..