The Mask of the Witch: from Ritual to Carnival and Theatre

Authors

  • Ioan Pop-Curșeu Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
  • Ștefana Pop-Curșeu Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Keywords:

mask, witch, witchcraft, carnival, theatre, folklore

Abstract

This paper tries to approach a problem of great interest for theatrical anthropology: the mask of the witch, raising some questions concerning its origin and antiquity. In order to propose some possible answers, the paper briefly re-examines Carlo Ginzburg’s view on witchcraft in Ecstasies. Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath (Storia notturna), with emphasis on some elements that are still useful, in spite of the criticism this seminal book provoked. Then, some occurrences of witch masks in carnival processions are discussed, with regard to Latin or Germanic cultures. The subsequent question is: are these masks old ones, with a long evolution and permanent changes in form and signification, or – at the opposite – are they recent, appearing in carnivals only after the end of the witch-craze, in the 18th century? The article ends with some examples of witch masks used in theatre (Shakespeare – Ion Sava, Court Ballets): their carnivalesque origins – more recent or more ancient – are underlined.

Author Biographies

Ioan Pop-Curșeu, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Ioan Pop-Curşeu (b. 4.02.1978, Ocna-Mureş) is Professor at the Faculty of Theatre and Film, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. He has defended his first Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Geneva in 2007, and the second at the Babeş-Bolyai University, in 2011. In 2015, he defended his habilitation dissertation at Babeş-Bolyai University and in 2016 he became a member of Academia Europaea, section: Film, Media and Visual Studies. His research interests are concerned with film aesthetics, art criticism and image theory, nineteenth-century literature and culture, as well as anthropological aspects of magic and witchcraft. He is the author of several books. The most recent are: Magie şi vrăjitorie în cultura română. Istorie, literatură, mentalităţi (2013), Manual de estetică (2014). He wrote dozens of articles on various themes, writers and films. He is the director of the IWACTA research project.

Ștefana Pop-Curșeu, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Ştefana Pop-Curșeu, Ph.D. at the University of Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle, in Theatre and Scenic Arts, is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Theatre and Film of Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, where she teaches antique and medieval theatre history and modern theory of theatre. She published many articles in theatre studies, in France and Romania. She translated alone or in collaboration with Ioan Pop-Curşeu a dozen of books from French to Romanian, such as Samuel Beckett, Sfârșit de partidă, 2000, L.-F. Céline, Convorbiri cu Profesorul Y, 2006, Pascal Vrebos, Avarul II, 2010, Gilles Deleuze, Imaginea-mişcare and Imaginea-timp, 2012, 2013), and is the author of the book: Pour une théâtralité picturale. Bruegel et Ghelderode en jeux de miroirs (2012). She wrote in collaboration with Ioan Pop-Curșeu two theatre scripts and directed two performances based on these scripts (Killed by Friendly Fire, 2014, and Every Tzara has his Dada, 2016). She is also, since 2011, the artistic director of the National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca.

Downloads

Published

2021-02-02

How to Cite

Pop-Curșeu, I., & Pop-Curșeu, Ștefana. (2021). The Mask of the Witch: from Ritual to Carnival and Theatre. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai - Dramatica, 65(1), 17–50. Retrieved from https://dramatica.ro/index.php/j/article/view/29

Issue

Vol. 65 No. 1 (2020): Images of Witchcraft: Theatre, Cinema, Visual & Performing Arts

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.