545464454

business. Once the city becomes a collective body, strong forces are let loose which may frighten and fascinate at the same time. Just below all this joy of living there is an undertone of irreality, something dangerous. The Carnival is partly a carefree festival, partly a sort of weird, electrical magic. It is true that everything else disappears from sight while the total theater of Car­ nival lasts. But the Copenhagen Carnival is coloured also by the dark years from which it springs. War and depression find a reflection in a more universal struggle between Life and Death. The mask makes it possible to transcend the limitations of everyday life. And every- body can participate, including the rabble who did not take part ind the patient ef- forts during the winter. A pair of diagonal lines or soft curves painted on your cheekbones —enough to make you somebody else. The mask provides you with a different identity and the courage to test some possibilities which otherwise would have been hidden away and forgotten. If it is possible to take possesszon of your sen­ ses, that is what happens here. And when you finally return to your everyday life, you do so at a higher level than before. Clowns, mountebanks, fools, transvestites and animals, who do not normally hold leading positions in the city society, have now liberated the city. The grotesque and the abnormal has unexpectedly come into power —and rudely resigned it at once, because madness is more fun than control. By night the city is dried out. There is not at single drop of beer for a rasping ton- gue. The unorganized part of the Festival begins to gain momentum in the half- light of the summer night. The rhytms of the Samba mount in furious ecstasy, as if in love, beaten by ten thousand hånds against everything that will give off a sound. Bottles, boxes and barreis. Chains of dancers make their way everywhere, stitching the night together. Chaos is near when everything seems to reach a peak. A few exhausted revellers have fallen asleep among broken beer bottles. But next morning the streets are

swept clean again; the police even report a non-violent weekend. And everybody who had only a small feather in his cap says: »Next year I’ll really dress up.«

Asger Lzebst