Two members of MASKS give lectures at the invitation of the University of Extremadura and the Diputación de Cáceres on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Ritos y rituales de invierno / Ritos e Rituais de Inverno’ (Winter Rites and Rituals)”
The exhibition displays a collection of more than fifty Tramontana masks associated with ancient rituals of the traditional Carnival from the private collection that Nuno Jorge Rodrigues Gonçalves has been building up. The handcrafted masks come from villages and towns in the District of Bragança. This territory preserves a vast cultural heritage related to the mask with an archaic origin, but still valid due to the great social acceptance it has today. This initiative is part of the programme of dissemination of this heritage by the Agrupamento Europeu de Cooperaçao Territorial Duero-Douro, directed by José Luis Pascual Criado. The exhibition ‘Ritos y rituales de invierno / Ritos e Rituais de Inverno’ could be seen from January to March 2024 at the Museum of the University of Valladolid and, previously, had been in Zamora and Salamanca, it has been seen in Cáceres.
On the occasion of the exhibition, Professor Clara Macías Sánchez of the University of Extremadura has organised a series of lectures open to the general public, but especially aimed at students of the Master's Degree in Social Anthropology. On 21 November, António Pinelo Tiza spoke on ‘Masquerades of the Northeast Transmontane. Rituals and Symbology’ and on 28 November Pilar Panero García spoke on “The masks of Zamora from Christmas to Epiphany”. Previously, the University of Extremadura lecturers Pilar Barrios Manzano and Clara Macías Sánchez had spoken on musical and performative aspects of Extremaduran masks. The researcher Sebastián Díaz Iglesias spoke about the most emblematic mask of Extremadura, Jarramplas, on which he did his doctoral thesis.
The exhibition has a catalogue with texts written by António Tiza, president of the Academia Ibérica da Máscara de Bragança and member of the MASKS team.
Would like to thank the University of Extremadura and the Diputación de Cáceres for this invitation and, especially, Professor Clara Macías for coordinating the activity. We are happy to give continuity to precious activities like this that have paved the way for MASKS.
