Photo: Olivier DesartMaskMuseum. Binche. Belgium

Masks - intangible heritage of Europe
 
An exhibition about mask traditions from the Carnaval and Mask Museum in Binche. Belgium
May 31 - September 19, 2010

In all cultures and in all times Man has used masks as a part of his register of cultural expression. The mask has had its given place in rites and ceremonies, in dance, in theatre and in carnaval. From the cultures of antiquity in the West, by the way of the Italian mask play called commedia dell´arte and the Japanese No-theatre to the so-called "primitive peoples", the mask has played an important role.The mask both covers and reveals, protects and liberates. Even today the mask is to be found in many cultures around the world, in Europe for instance in carnaval times, as in Venice or in Binche, and other festivities, as Christmas.

This exhibition is produced by the Carnaval and Mask museum in Binche, in Belgium. In this Walloon city exists a living, extravagant carnaval tradition where the mask of course plays an important role. The exhibition displays the universality of the mask in general but its European traditions in particular.

The exhibition is presented in connection to Belgium taking over the presidency of the European Union from July 1st 2010.

Musée international du Carnaval et du Masque

TONIGHT
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELIS HOFFMAN
1-31 OCTOBER 2010

“I was touring round Sweden with various dance bands. After a while, I realised that it wasn’t the bands themselves that interested me but the people out on the dance floor. I identified with the powerful expressions of emotion I saw. It felt as though I wasn’t the only one who had a burning need to feel something and at the same time to express what I was feeling. It was then that I started to ask myself why we are so afraid of showing our emotions. Why are we embarrassed about our emotional needs?

“I want my pictures to change the way we see ourselves and others. To me, people are at their most beautiful when they are brave enough to show their vulnerability.”

The exhibition has previously been shown in Paris, Groningen, Nantes, Lodz and Montpellier and has won a number of prizes and awards.

The exhibition is accompanied by the publication of a new book

www.elishoffman.com

Admission free

ANNA DUNCAN:
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ISADORA
12 NOVEMBER 2010 – 27 FEBRUARY 2011

She was just as famous for dancing barefoot in diaphanous robes as she was for her radical ideas about the relationship between the sexes. A fearless advocate of women’s rights, Isadora Duncan’s dance and her ideas caused a moral outcry.

Her independence as a woman and a dancer, a thinker and an activist has seen Isadora Duncan become one of the greatest legends of the twentieth century. She changed society, the theatre and dance.

Young Anna Denzler from Switzerland was one of Duncan’s first pupils. She became one of the six “Isadorables”, a famous group of girls who took Duncan’s name and were known as her daughters. Anna Duncan dedicated her life to Isadora and her dancing.

The exhibition is based on the Dance Museum’s Anna Duncan extensive archive of photographs, drawings and costumes.

This exhibition takes us through the life of a young woman and the changing fashions of modern dance with one of the pioneers of feminism.