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Purification in the Velvet Carnival

by Marketa Svobodova

Biographical note: Marketa Svobodova is a religious studies student at

Charles University in Prague. She is in her first year of Master’

programme. Her main interest is the anthropological study of ritual and

emotion. She also studies the culture and language of ancient Egyptian

culture and ancient Greek culture. She wrote a bachelor’s thesis on the

concept of virginity in ancient Greece. She also wrote a paper on the Evil

Eye phenomenon.

Abstract: The Velvet Carnival is a satirical procession that took place in

Prague in 2012 and 2013, as a reaction to the political and social

environment in the Czech Republic. In this article, the event is understood as

a secular ritual with traits of theatre. Participants I spoke to said that being

part of the procession they felt some kind of relief. They called it

“purification”. The participants described this purification in different words,

but those descriptions all have something in common. What is purification to

them and how do they experience it?

On the 17th of November, 2012, the first Velvet Carnival (in Czech: Sametové posvícení) took place in

Prague. It was a satirical procession inspired by Fasnacht, a three day carnival in Basel. Everything and

everyone could become the object of satire: politicians, institutions, corporations. The procession was

formed by initiatives and each was supposed to tell a coherent story or to deliver a coherent message by

means of masks, sculptures, sounds and music. Concerns of these initiatives ranged from ecology and

racism to public transport. In 2013, the festival took place for the second time. It was this Velvet

Carnival that I filmed and that I write about.

The date and location of the procession were not chosen haphazardly. November 17th is the date of

one of the biggest protests against the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989. For some, these

protests were a commemoration of protests by students on the same date in 1939. Today, citizens of

the Czech Republic celebrate the 17th of November as the “Struggle for Freedom and Democracy

Day.” The organizers of the Velvet Carnival felt that there is not a main event that would

commemorate this date. So, they created the Velvet Carnival.

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The location of the carnival is also significant; the protests of 1989 took place near the National

Theatre, where the Velvet Carnival procession starts and finishes. The procession also crosses the river

on the Charles Bridge, one of the most important historical monuments of Prague. The procession

goes through the heart of Prague and crosses the river twice: to go to Kampa, a park near the river, and

back.

The ways to understand this carnival are many. One of my interviewees, Pepa Blažejovský,1 a student

from the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University and the leader of an initiative, told me that for

him, it was a „carnival of civil society“. For my second interviewee, Pavla Bendová,2 a theatre studies

student and organizer of the mask-making workshops, the Velvet Carnival was mainly about meeting

people and exchanging opinions about what surrounds us. From my point of view it was a creative,

satirical reaction to events in the public sphere of the Czech Republic.

Before the Velvet Carnival

In 2012 I was a member of a group of students observing the festival and using ethnographic methods

to study it. After the Velvet Carnival, we had a discussion that was led by Ronald Grimes, a ritual

studies scholar. In 2013, a group of field research studies students among which I was, was set up to

observe the carnival. We were led by Ronald Grimes again. Since October, we had live online Skype

sessions with him and we tried to prepare for the field research. From time to time, we were to visit the

mask-making workshops and gatherings of the organizers to better understand preparations for the

festival.

In September, before the course with Ronald Grimes even officially started, a few students from our

course went to a mask-making workshop. This workshop took place at sanctuary of a Protestant

church. In the middle of the sanctuary were, instead of church pews, big tables covered in plastic

sheets with masks of clay being made, or I should say born, on them. When we arrived, we were full of

expectations about the things we were about to discover during the field work. I was standing in the

middle of this sanctuary where the workshop took place, excited, with a camera in one hand and a little

notebook in the other. After a moment of hesitation I approached a woman who was making a

template for a mask from clay. She wore an old dirty shirt, her hands were covered in clay, and she was

in her twenties. My first question, one of the silliest questions I could ask, was: “How do you feel when

you’re making the mask?” The woman looked at me like I was crazy. I had it coming.

The workshop started on Monday and went on through the rest of the week. I was so embarrassed that

I stopped asking questions and mentioning my research. I started working with the volunteers. I was

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making the masks, transporting the masks, painting the masks. At the end, it was good for my research;

I got to know the organizers. I got to go with them to the pub; I laughed with them. The atmosphere

was very relaxed. I met my future interviewees there: Pavla, who was leading the workshops and Pepa

who was there a few times and who I already new. When I spoke to Pavla about the workshops, she

told me that talking to others, meeting new people and hearing their views on the world are the reasons

she participates to and organizes the carnival. It is funny that for her the carnival was over when the

preparations stopped and when the masks were ready.

When I asked Pavla how the communication during the workshops was exceptional she told me that

talking to people that are in the same room but are doing something different (making masks, painting

them, cleaning the room) get to know each other a lot better than if they were talking face to face.

“You don’t have to talk, if you don’t want. You can be quiet and work together for an hour and it is

okay. This wouldn’t be possible in the pub.” Pavla helped the initiatives to create masks so that the

spectators would understand them. Standing back and trying to see the objects and goals of one’s

initiative satirically isn’t an easy thing to do. The result the organizers of the procession wanted to

achieve was to make the participants think about their lives, the lives of people in the city, the city itself

and reflect on them satirically. To alleviate their burden of everyday lives and of social problems

without underestimating them. As if the organizers took the burden of those social topics of the

shoulders of anyone attending the procession, transformed these burdens into masks and statues and

then, together, laughed at them.

Once the course officially started I thought that my focus would be on observing gestures, facial

expressions and bodily representations of emotions. When I told Grimes about my interests and asked

him to recommend me some books I could read before experiencing the carnival, he recommended me

Stanislavski’s work. This wasn’t the first time someone recommended that I read Stanislavski, but I

never really knew Stanislavski’s work firsthand. He was a Russian author and a theatre director living in

the middle of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. When he writes about the art of an actor,

he claims that “the whole being [is] prepared to throw itself somewhere and to grasp something (...)

that is the art of experiencing”.3 He wrote passionately about art and theatre and I thought: “That is it.

I want to write about what participants experience during the festival.” So, I automatically started

approaching the festival as theatre, as if deep emotions were to be aroused in the participants. As if

observers and participants were in fact actors and spectators. In my mind, I wanted the mask carriers to

be Shakespearean actors. But soon, Pavla showed me that theatre and carnival are two different things.

She opened my eyes when she told me: “There is no actor. I don’t see any common points with

theatre.”

I discovered a plurality of opinions about the Velvet Carnival. I wanted to see the carnival as ultimately

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transforming people’s lives, but such an ultimate experience didn’t happen to Pepa nor to Pavla. I

started to view the festival more soberly, but I had not abandoned the idea of studying what people felt

as strong moments of the procession. I began viewing it more as a ritual. More concretely, as a secular

ritual with some traits of theatre. It was a secular ritual for me because it was a ritualized event (the

same places are connected to it every year, the same timing, the day of November 17th on which it

occurs, the controlled behavior of the participants etc.), but it doesn’t refer to anything transcendental,

which is an important trait of religious ritual. It has theatrical traits because it has connections to

theatre, as participants wear masks, play roles, have “stage” properties etc.

A day before the Velvet Carnival, our chance to do actual field research came. The organizers gathered

at the piazzetta of the National Theatre, to once again repeat basic instructions (see Figure 1) to the

leaders of the initiatives and to lay out the procession route (see Figure 4).4 Pre-walking was necessary

to make sure that the road would be smooth for all the masks, disabled people, or strollers. I arrived at

the piazzetta quite early so that I could observe the whole event and I had borrowed a camera to make

videos.

The organizers and field research students gathered slowly, greeting each other, talking, laughing.

Apparently the organizers knew each other quite well. They were all about the same age, well-educated

and usually the parents of little children who were there with them. After gathering at the piazzetta of

the National Theatre, we went down the street, Smetanovo nábř eží, over the Charles Bridge, to the

Lennon wall, to Kampa, a park, and back to the piazzetta by the bridge Most Legií. From time to time,

Figure 1: The organnizer is giving instructions at the piazzetta.

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we stopped and discussed a potential problem that might appear at a specific place. Our longest break

was at Kampa. There the procession was to stop and the initiatives were to present their masks and

summarize their work. This part wasn’t supposed to be satirical. The organizer explained where she

wanted the initiatives and the spectators to stand. We even rehearsed this moment. From Kampa, our

small group of organizers and field research students went back to the piazzetta. I could feel joy,

happiness and a friendly tone throughout our route. From the shots I took, I made a video. The video

The Day before the Velvet Carnival (see Figure 1) is supposed to help you understand the environment in

which the Velvet Carnival was born: to understand the route of the procession and to get to know the

organizers.5

The Day of the Carnival

On the day of the carnival, before leaving the house I made sure I was ready for fieldwork. I checked if

my camera and video camera were charged and working well and if I had enough batteries for my audio

recorder. I met Pepa at 13:00 at the metro station Vyšehrad and we went to his friend’s house to get

some masks and transport them together by tram to the piazzetta. The friend’s name was Ondř ej, a

Faculty of Humanities student. Ondř ej opened the door in his dressing gown and before he could ask

who I was, Pepa said: “This is Marketa, she will be doing field research on the procession.” He invited

us in. He needed to get dressed and to get ready. After we had been talking for a while, I discovered

that Ondř ej couldn’t understand why a religious studies student would analyze the Velvet Carnival.

Ondř ej decided to “help” me with my research; when I began shooting a video, he started reading out

loud random books about religion, like the Bible in German, and making ironic statements about

rituals. Before the festival even began, he was already in a satirical mood. But maybe that was just is

nature. If you want to see what happened there, have a look at the first few minutes of the video The

Procession (see Figure 2).6

Once we arrived at the piazzetta, at 14:00, the crowd gathered slowly. People carrying masks greeted

each other at the piazzetta. The atmosphere was relaxed and fun, even though it was cold and many of

the participants weren’t there yet, which made the organizers nervous. Pepa introduced me to the

members of the initiative he led, the Students of the Faculty of Humanities (Students of the FHS; in Czech:

Studenti FHS). The aim of their initiative in the context of the procession was to attract attention to the

problem of the industrialization of education. Some of them didn’t care about my research, or that I

was filming them, but some were confused by my presence. When I started filming the members of

this initiative, some of them asked to show me their tribal dance in masks.7 They treated me as an

anthropologist and in that moment they were the tribe I was studying. They reacted to my research

exactly in the spirit of the festival itself: they were satirical about it, as was Ondř ej when he was

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reading out loud the Bible in

German. The Students of the FHS

behaved satirically throughout the

whole day. As the beginning of the

procession drew closer, the

preparations got more hectic. People

were only now finishing their masks.

The Students of the FHS were

preparing their pamphlets to hand

out during the procession. Each

initiative was to have an informative pamphlet describing their masks, interests and goals. Their

pamphlets were rolled up in colored toilet paper rolls that represented university diplomas (see Figure

2). They wanted to hand out “diplomas” for free to the bystanders. I heard them describing this as “the

hunt for diplomas.” But again, there was time to laugh, to drink and to have a cigarette.

As the procession was about to start, a man with a microphone presented each of the initiatives; there

were about ten of them, each one with its own idea, concept and masks. Some of the initiatives were

bigger, some were smaller. The Students of the FHS had about 15 members. At the beginning of the

group of people formed by members of the initiative, four young women were dancing in colorful

clothes to the beats of a drummer. They had blue, yellow, red and green masks on their faces. Behind

the girls a sculpture that was supposed to show the “factory” or the “process of the manufacturing of

students” was carried by two students (see Figure 3). It was a blue sculpture made of iron. “It was

heavy as a pig,” described it Pepa during our interview. Around this sculpture there were a few young

men in black and white masks. They were handing out the pamphlets. Among them there was Ondř ej

with a white mask and a megaphone. He shouted satirical statements about education: “We want to

abolish unprofitable subject fields!” I doubt that any student of humanities wouldn’t understand that

this claim was satirical, but to some people it wasn’t. I am sure many Czech citizens would agree with it.

Behind the sculpture, men and women with red and blue boxes on their heads and wearing black

clothes were walking soullessly. They reminded me of robots. Some of them were even walking like

robots. You couldn’t say if men or women were carrying them. They were representing the result of

the industrialization of education. 8

Figure 2: The pamphlets as university dimplomas (video thumbnail).

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About 15:00 the procession left the piazzetta and followed exactly the same path as the day before (see

Figure 4). The Students of the FHS were in the middle of the procession. Girls dancing in front of the

sculpture were attracting the most attention. The men wearing black and white masks and screaming

“Free diplomas for everyone!” also attracted much attention. During our interview a few weeks later,

Pepa told me that when the procession began marching, he thought: “This is it?” It was when the

procession arrived at the middle of Smetanovo nábř eží that he started to feel the atmosphere and the

rhythms of the drums. “I started moving,” he said.

The procession was colorful and loud but it didn’t absorb the environment. It was not ruling it. The

procession was just a part of the city, not vice-versa. The Students of the FHS were repeating the same

gestures, words, roles again and again. The bystanders were mainly tourists. I am not sure if they

understood what was going on. The procession stopped very often, probably due to traffic problems.

This ruined the atmosphere, because sometimes when the procession stopped, the participants weren’t

playing their roles any more.9

Pepa later said, “The procession, that’s

something really weird. You are wearing

this stupid close fitting mask, you can’t

see anything, the policemen don’t

understand why you are bumping into

them, because they don’t realize you are

practically blind.” Pepa also said during

our interview that he experienced

Figure 4: The map of the procession.

Figure 3: The procession at the bridge Most Legií (vidoe thumbnail).

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absolute freedom when he was wearing the mask. “You can do whatever you want because you have no

face; there is no one to identify.”

“What gives life to the procession,” said Pepa, “is that it is forced to adapt itself to the narrow streets; it

slims down and then becomes larger again. This was apparent at the Maltézské námě stí.” This reminds

me of breathing. An important break in this breath of the procession was when it arrived to Kampa.

This moment was brought up several times during our conversation with Pepa. Let me first describe

what happened.

As planned, the bystanders and the initiatives stopped in the park. The bystanders formed a circle and

the initiatives went into the middle of it one by one. A speaker was reading out loud information about

each initiative that they gave him beforehand. Pepa told me that their message was sometimes

misunderstood. A few bystanders didn’t understand that their claims about the industrialization of

education were satirical; they thought they were sincere. “Some people, when they’re at the carnival,

start to take themselves extremely seriously. Some people just don’t understand carnival (…). And then

this woman, probably an art teacher, came to us and she asked us what exactly are the unprofitable

subject fields of education we wanted to abolish [Pepa laughs].” It seemed absurd to Pepa that an art

teacher would take this statement seriously in the context of a procession that is satirical in nature. I

think that for Pepa, a notion that a student would want to abolish unprofitable subject fields is so

absurd that he didn’t see how someone could misunderstand it. But it happened. The question remains

whether the Students of FHS failed to get their message across, or if the spectators lacked a sense of

satire. I don’t know.

“Two hours later we were at Kampa where the procession lost its energy. We were showing off in the

dark to nobody. Most of the people were pissed off that we had to go back to the piazzetta. A friend

of mine described it very well; he said that he felt like he was in the middle of a theatre play and

suddenly the characters stopped acting and they started explaining who they were.” The rhythm was

lost and what was emotional or auditory was lost in favor of something verbalized. “Explaining verbally

has no place in such an event. There wasn’t even someone to whom to explain, there is nobody there!”

I also think that with the dark and the stop, fatigue came. Many people also stopped following the

procession and new ones no longer joined. “There, for me, the procession was over,” said Pepa.

I think we have spent about half an hour or an hour at Kampa. Then the procession went back to the

piazzetta. For me, as for Pepa and Pavla, the atmosphere was lost. Still, I saw a potential in this

moment. Since it was dark, the procession gained an entirely new atmosphere. It wasn’t as satirical and

fun, but now I could feel something new: mystery. As the organizers told me, they weren’t expecting it

to be dark this early and they weren’t thinking about the consequences. It would be interesting to work

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with the darkness a bit more the next time.

Once the procession came back to the piazzetta, I felt that the energy somehow returned. When all the

masks were taken off and when the sculpture-bearers took the burdens off their shoulders, I heard

them laughing again. Everyone was invited to go to a nearby pub called “U Medvídků ”. The

organisers, participants, spectators and the field research students all went there. A huge space in the

pub was reserved only for the carnival. There, the procession truly ended in a relaxed and joyful

atmosphere.10

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A Reflection on the Carnival: Stages of Purification

The reflection on the Velvet Carnival is based mainly on what the interviewees told me and on my

interpretation of their claims and experiences. I’ve met with Pepa once and we had an hour and a half

long interview, plus he sent me his answers to several questions I asked him later by mail. I interviewed

Pavla three times and the interviews took about an hour and a half also. The interviews were led in a

friendly manner and

Pepa and Pavla were

both very open about

their opinions on the

Velvet Carnival.

I asked questions

ranging from defining

the event, describing

feelings during the

event, describing the

evolution of the

event (what happened

first, what happened

last) or what should

be different next year.

Their answers varied greatly but they agreed on one thing. At one point of the interview, when I asked

him about the effects of the procession, Pepa said: “As the procession goes through the city, it purifies

it beautifully. (…) It brings life back. It shows the inappropriateness of the things that surround us. (…)

You sort of clean the city’s veins so it is able to breathe again.” At that time, I thought that it was a nice

metaphor and an interesting notion. But later, during my first interview with Pavla, when she said that

“after the Velvet Carnival, I felt purification”, I knew that the fact that they both mentioned

purification can be significant for this research. In the remaining part of my article, I will try to

understand and explain what purification in the context of the Velvet Carnival means to them.

In Pepa’s case, purification happened through the relation of the procession with its environment; the

procession livened up the city and helped Pepa to see it in a new perspective. This new angle, if only

for a while, relieved him from the bonds of the city and from the stereotypes that come with it. So, not

only the city was purified, but he also felt it, he experienced purification. To the question from what he

Figure 5: Pepa Blažejovský during the interview.

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was purified, he answered: “I think that from the city’s “machine-like-life”, from the everyday routine,

when you become an impersonal inhabitant of the city at least for a while (…), from the problems that

people usually don’t talk about, but on which light was shed here.”11 Pepa claims that this purification

was happening during the procession itself. He said that “if it ended on Kampa, I would say that that

was the point where it culminated, but that didn’t happen because we had to go all the way to the

National Theatre”.

For Pavla, purification happened only after the Velvet Carnival was over. For her, purification is a

change of her personal point of view. This point of view changed on things that can seem marginal to

someone, but not to Pavla. As an example of purification she experienced, she stated her experience

with the initiative Tosara. This initiative focuses on Romani children. Tosara helps those children to

assimilate to the society and still maintain their own culture. “They [people from Tosara] discovered that

the children can’t speak Romani any more. So instead of forcing them to learn it by playing games in

Romani, they played games in a language they agreed on. It makes more sense to listen to the kids and

to do what it suitable for them rather than forcing them to do what others thought was right.” This is

the shift of opinion she experienced that to her is identical with purification. “This changed me. But it

was only later that I’ve realized it.”

For Pavla, purification happened as a consequence of interpersonal communication that concerned a

topic that touched her and that made a shift of view possible. This experience was emotional as well as

Figure 6: Pavla Bendová, my interviewee.

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intellectual. This could probably happen to Pavla under different circumstances as well, but the Velvet

Carnival is special for different reasons. First, it brings together people who are interested in important

social topics that, by their nature, deeply touch people. Secondly, they have to think about those topics

to make them communicable through a mask, statue or a particular sound. They have to stand back and

look on their topic from a certain distance; and it is within this distance that they have to decide how to

communicate their message satirically, as it is a satirical procession. This, as Pavla told me, was very

difficult for some of them. Those special circumstances of the Velvet Carnival made it possible for

Pavla to experience purification.

Purification as a two-staged concept

I wanted to anchor this purification Pepa and Pavla experienced more academically. To find a theory to

follow or to compare it to. So, I wrote to one of my professors whether he has an idea about some text

about purification in ritual, or in secular ritual, and he wrote back this: “Don’t you mean ritual catharsis?

Read Scheff ’s article.” The article he meant was Thomas Scheff ’s article “The Distancing of Emotion

in Ritual”, where he writes about catharsis in ritual. 12 Scheff ’s concept of catharsis is based on

Aristotle’s use of this word in his Poetics to explain purgation of emotion during dramas.13

I decided to interviewed Pepa and Pavla also on catharsis and whether it has a relation to purification in

the framework of the Velvet Carnival. But I decided to let them explain how they understand catharsis.

I have not explained them catharsis or ritual catharsis, nor my views on them. The question I asked was

“How could you define catharsis and what is its place in the Velvet Carnival?” Both interviewees were

acquainted with Aristotelian catharsis as they are both students of humanities, but, of course, they both

understood it differently. I will use the word “catharsis” in this paper in the sense of what the

interviewees told me, I won’t work with any other theory concerning catharsis.

Speaking about catharsis, Pepa said: “Something changes in me. This carnival didn’t do it but I can

imagine it could happen during a carnival but the whole city would have to experience this carnival. (…)

Purification is sort of a mental hygiene.” Catharsis, as he told me, is emotionally a lot deeper than

purification. For Pepa, catharsis and purification are different but related concepts.

When I asked Pavla about the relation between catharsis and purification, she said: “Catharsis is a

process, it happens. Purification is the result. It’s static.” As I understand it, catharsis for Pavla was like

one of those little experiences of communicating with someone on a personal level during the festival

under the circumstances I described earlier but purification happened when the festival was over.

From what they have told me I understand that catharsis, for both of them, is something different

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from purification. Catharsis happens. It is an experience that leads to change. I also understand that

purification happens on a different level; reflection is involved. Let me quote Pavla’s words again to

support this theory. First, she described her conversation with people from Tosara and then she said:

“This changed me. But it was only later that I’ve realized it.” The change came with catharsis, but the

realization of this fact and hence purification happened later, after reflection. From what Pepa told me,

catharsis didn’t happen to him during the Velvet Carnival, but purification did. Nothing in him

changed. He felt relieved, but I cannot say if this relief was connected to reflection, as in Pavla’s case.

As you can see from the quotes, they both said that with catharsis, something changes in them but with

purification comes a relief as a result of what happened (Pepa) or as a result of reflection (Pavla).

Mainly from what Pavla told me it could be interesting to think of purification of a two-staged affair.

The first stage is an experience of “catharsis”, as the interviewees defined it. The second stage is

purification. This term I use because the interviewees have used it. Catharsis, in this context, is

something that happens, a process of inner change that is experienced first. Purification is “static”. It was

a result of this change that in Pavla’s case was her conscious change of point of view. For Pepa,

purification was relief.

Distancing of Emotion in the Velvet Carnival

What made Pavla experience what she called purification was not only the experience of catharsis, but

also something else. She said that the experience with Tosara has changed her but, as she said “it was

only later that I’ve realized it.” What is this “later” and what does it imply? From what Pavla told me, I

understand that it implies a temporal distance that is that the event is not happening anymore and a

distance, a “later” that allows intellectual reflection on that event (hence Pavla’s words that she has

“realized it”). For the purpose of this article, I will work with the term “distance”, as it seems to me the

most accurate term.

Distance is a notion used in interpreting rituals by Thomas Scheff, who borrowed the concept of

distancing from dramatic criticism. 14 This notion could help me interpret how Pavla understands

purification. One of the reasons why I want to work with this theory is that is focuses on rituals, but it

has roots in theory of theatre. It is therefore compatible with how I understand the Velvet Carnival. A

key point of the theory for this article is the concept of esthetic distance. Dramas with esthetic distance

allow the audience to experience feelings without being overwhelmed by them. “At esthetic distance,

there is a balance between thought and feeling.”15

Does this esthetic distance correspond to Pavla’s experience of reflection through distance? But before

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I begin answering this question I need to go through a few problematic points. First of all, are the

interviewees spectators or actors? Thomas Scheff also recognized this problem in his study of

distancing in ritual. He says that a person participating in a ritual can be both participant and observer

of the event.16 Pepa and Pavla were both participants and observers; they made masks, they wore them,

but they have also observed other people doing those activities and they have also observed the

procession. The distinction between spectators and actors is sharp in theatre or drama, but not as much

in ritual or festival.

Esthetic distance is relied to drama or ritual as a whole. It is in fact not understood temporally, without

taking in consideration the beginning or end of the event. The audience is treated as a whole as well.

What I suggest is to understand it from the perspective of each individual and to recognize it

temporally. It is not unusual that one spectator truly feels the experience and another one not or that

the spectator first doesn’t have an esthetic distance but later achieves it.

Let’s apply esthetic distance to Pavla’s case. The conversation with people from Tosara aroused interest

and emotion in her: children from the outskirts of society and their education were involved. After the

conversation, Pavla gained “esthetic distance”, because when she remembered the conversation she

“[experienced] emotions but [was] not overwhelmed by them”17. She was able to reflect on the situation

and feel purified. So, the experience which aroused emotion, that is “catharsis” as we call it, is later

accompanied by esthetic distance, allowing a temporal and intellectual distance from the immediate

experience. It is the distance from immediate experience that allows reflection.

Conclusion

A pattern presented in this article is understanding the Velvet Carnival as a two-staged affair, first one

involving an experience I called catharsis. This term differs from the Greek catharsis and corresponds

to the interpretations of the interviewees. Catharsis is in here a process of inner change that is brought

through some strong experience. The other stage is purification. As Pavla said, it is a shift in point of

view. Pepa said it is a feeling of relief. What led Pavla to purification was a certain distance from the

immediate experience of catharsis. This distance was temporal and emotional; her thoughts and

feelings were in harmony.

Pavla experienced “catharsis”, distance and purification. It is difficult to say whether this is a pattern

that every participant of the Velvet Carnival could experience; I doubt that, as some of Pepa’s answers

differ from Pavla’s. Still, I can see a certain universal pattern emerging from this analysis: the Velvet

Carnival was an unusual event involving emotions (not only meeting other people concerned with

15

important social topics, but also the festival involves an emotional atmosphere, like joy etc.), later, when

the festival is over comes a distance (it is temporal and not heavily loaded with emotions). As a

consequence of this distance comes reflection providing the final shift of point of view on various

aspects of the world we live in. This is what I believe could happen also to other participants or

organizers than Pavla. The difference could be that for Pavla, this process was conscious, but it was not

necessarily conscious for everyone. As this article is not concerned with the unconscious, I cannot

prove that.

16

Sources Cited

Golden, Leon, “The Purgation Theory of Catharsis,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 31, no. 1

(1973): 473–479.

Moreno, J. L., “Mental Catharsis and the Psychodrama,” Sociometry 3, no. 3 (1940): 209–244.

Scheff, Thomas J., “The Distancing of Emotion in Ritual [and Comments and Reply],” Current

Anthropology 18, no. 3 (1977): 483–505.

Stanislavski, Constantin, Moje výchova k herectví, Praha: Athos, 1945.

Notes

1 See Figure 5, page 9.

2 See Figure 6, page 10.

3 Constantin Stanislavski, Moje výchova k herectví, Praha: Athos, 1945. 31.

4 The map is available at http://www.novascena.cz/data/files/fotografie-repertoar/trasa-1.jpg.

5 Marketa Svobodova, “The Day before the Velvet Carnival”, https://vimeo.com/86330355, 2014.

6 Marketa Svobodova, “The Procession”, https://vimeo.com/86325146, 2014.

7 See the video The Procession, from 03:14

8 To see the masks of the initiative Studenti FHS, see the video The Procession to see the festival, from

04:09.

9 See the video The Procession, from 05:07.

10 See the video The Procession, from 07:30.

11 By those problems, Pepa meant the problems the initiatives wanted to attract attention to. He

mentioned the initiative Otrokem rasy (Slave of the Race) that was holding a big statue of a pig with a

clothes-peg on its nose. This statue referred to the fact that on the former concentration camp in Lety,

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Czech Republic, where many Romani people were killed is now a piggery. The initiative would like there

to be a memorial to the deceased.

12 Thomas J. Scheff, “The Distancing of Emotion in Ritual [and Comments and Reply],” Current Anthropology 18, no. 3 (1977): 483–505.

13 The Greek katharsis is a noun corresponding to a verb that literally means to prune, to clean, to

remove dirt or a blemish to render something pure. Today, this term is used very largely and

associations with it are many. Except the context of purification in ancient Greece and many other

contexts, it is used in theory of drama that is based on Aristotelian catharsis. Aristotle’s concept he

presents in his Poetics „represents a process of purgation in which the emotions of pity and fear are

aroused by tragic dramas and then somehow eliminated from the psyche of the audience“(Leon

Golden, “The Purgation Theory of Catharsis,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 31, no. 1 (1973):

473). Psychology is also concerned with this notion. Mental catharsis is a purge of (…) impure

emotions and this theory is based on Aristotelian catharsis as well (Moreno, J. L, “Mental Catharsis and

the Psychodrama,” Sociometry 3, no. 3 (1940): 209–244.).

14 Dramatic criticism recognizes under distanced dramas, over distanced dramas and dramas with

esthetic distance. The under distanced evoke raw emotion in the audience and the audience can’t reflect

on the experience, because they lack distance from it. Over distanced dramas don’t invoke any feelings

at all in the audience. Dramas with esthetic distance allow the audience to experience feelings without

being overwhelmed by them (Thomas J. Scheff, “The Distancing of Emotion in Ritual,”485.) For

Scheff, underdistancing corresponds in ritual to the return of repressed emotion (in a situation where it

is not appropriate) and overdistancing to repression (Ibid., 486.).

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid., 488.

17 Ibid., 486.