Nadur Carnival

"Wake Up! You are destroying your own Carnival," warns expert
a june29th.com exclusive

She's the co-ordinator of the Theatre Studies Department at the University of Malta as well as a French interpreter. 
Dr Vicki Ann Cremona has studied the spontaneous Carnival at Nadur and published the first documentary on Nadur Carnival in 1992. Since then, 
hundreds of Maltese people started 
crossing the channel to experience 
Nadur’s Unique Carnival. 
What is happening now? 
Pierre J. Mejlak caught up with Dr Cremona 
and this is what she had to say...

The problem is clear - you are destroying your own Carnival. The spontaneous Carnival at Nadur was the Carnival which characterized Nadur and made it different from all other Carnivals in Malta.

Very few people had heard of Nadur’s macabre Carnival until I started studying it in 1989. Three years afterwards I published a special documentary on Nadur’s Carnival and that was it: everyone wanted to be at Nadur to experience the real thing. 

Nadur’s Carnival was packed with theatricality. People used to start thinking of what to come up with just two or three days before Carnival. And they used to come up with brilliant ideas, which had extremely interesting aspects of anthropological roots. I remember once there was a Carnival with so many pro-hunting floats. There used to be so many floats commenting on political issues. What is happening now?! Very unfortunately, someone who surely must be out of his mind, came up with the idea of organizing the Sunday afternoon show – which is destroying the popular Nadur Carnival.

You [Nadur] should not deal with the organized Sunday shows. First of all because there is already one at Victoria, which has a tradition stemming from 1952 and there is yet another one in Valletta, which goes back centuries.

People who go to Nadur for Carnival do not go there to see the organized Sunday show. And because there are thousands of people flocking the square to watch the Sunday show means absolutely nothing. Let’s face it – there aren’t so many different places where one can go! People have nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon and so they go and sit there and watch an organized show – which is NOT Nadur’s Carnival but a photocopy, and a bad one at that, of other Carnivals. To worsen matters, people who decide to build a float, are not finding enough time and energy to think of the spontaneous Carnival. And that is why floats are disappearing from the real Nadur Carnival.

Everyone remembers what a great Carnival one could enjoy at Nadur. So many floats! All those brilliant ideas! I used to see people going up and down December 13th Street carrying whole wardrobes. Once there was even a life-size butchers’ shop – not to mention all sexual innuendos.

But as all the attention is absorbed by the artificial organized Carnival – the true Carnival is dying. And believe me – if things go on this way people will no longer cross over from Malta to enjoy the Nadur Carnival. They might as well stay home or go to Valletta.

Floodlights, Flags and Rock

Nadur’s Carnival suffered a big blow when someone decided to light up the street with powerful floodlights. Didn’t these people know that Nadur’s Carnival is the Devil’s Carnival? Then, why all those floodlights?! And why all those Carnival flags, which have absolutely NOTHING to do with the Nadur Carnival?

You always had a macabre Carnival. Way back in time, it used to take place in darker and even more secluded roads.

The rock bands on each end of December 13th Street were introduced in 1990. The traditional music then found itself in nearby bars. And what happened? People started gathering into these bars as that was the kind of music they wanted to hear. Rock can be heard throughout all the year. With the introduction of the rock bands, the true Carnival rhythm vanished from your streets.

Organized vs Spontaneous

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the Nadurin cannot build nice Carnival floats. Of course they do and they used to compete in the Victoria competition with great floats. But that's not your forte. Your forte was that you were the only people in Malta and Gozo who had the guts to take out all the rubbish you could possibly find in your houses and take it up your main road! And with that rubbish the Nadurin used to do a statement – either a political statement, a social statement or just a funny statement. You were the only people in Malta who could do something marvelous with basically nothing. Some maskarati used to be really amazing. They would not just go there and walk. They used to do a whole act. 

Once, I remember, there was a group of people dressed up as street sweepers and they used to literally sweep policemen down from the pavement and then they used to, kind of, excuse themselves. That was amazing! See – that was the element of transgression at its best. All the margins and all elements of power are being renegotiated in Carnival. What are they doing now? They are shooting themselves in their foot. Honestly it makes me so angry! That was the Nadur Carnival – full of theatricality. And now we are destroying all form of theatricality as we are imposing theatricality. We are seating crowds of people in the square. We are bringing bands and entertainers, 99% not even from Gozo, and we are doing a show, like so many others! There is no originality in the organized Carnival. It’s a pity. A real pity. One day you will regret it – believe me.

Nadur’s Carnival has nothing to do with dance companies or entertainers singing in the square. Nadur’s Carnival can be seen in that guy full of guts who dressed up as Tony Zarb, or those two other people who dressed up like Dr Fenech Adami and Dr Alfred Sant. Or that old lady taking care of her husband, or the old man so afraid that someone might steal his suitcase or that very amazing drunken old man… that’s the Nadur Carnival! Today, these people have no space where to walk. Instead of tackling this issue, you have lighted up the streets with floodlights and parked two big trucks for the rock bands to control the crowd.

Instead of urging the people to use all the street, and not just three-quarters of it [from the football club downwards], you have decreased the space and now the crowds are taking up all space which was always reserved for the revelers. The audience has encroached on the space and therefore theatricality is not being allowed to be performed. There is very little space left for the great floats we used to see a few years back. Revelers need space!

Protest

I am out trying to create a protest: Please Save Nadur Carnival because we are going to kill it and the people on top are not realizing it. You are killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. People flocked to Nadur because it was a Carnival with a difference. What are we doing now? We are creating a Carnival which is a photocopy, and a bad one, of other Carnivals. If you want to organize the Sunday Carnival no matter what, then please organize a Carnival based on parodies. You are making people spend a lot of money and enter into this ridiculous competition when in reality we are destroying what we had before – uncontrollable theatricality. It is crazy. It makes me want to cry 

Political Satire, Sex, Priests and Nuns

Laws should be changed. As a person I’m rather anarchical so I would do my best to challenge the authorities and dress up like that. Then all those who love the true Nadur Carnival should group up and put pressure so that laws get changed. Politics in Malta is so central that we have forgotten how to laugh. Laws dealing with Carnival and Satire were approved way back in time, when Malta was still a Colony and, very surprisingly, the Maltese politicians had not enough guts to amend them. Why? Because our politicians take themselves far too seriously. They are scared of this kind of criticism. But everybody enjoyed seeing Dr Sant and Dr Fenech Adami at Nadur’s Carnival because it was so daring.

Animal Protection vs Custom

You have to draw a line between animal protection and custom. I believe no animal should be badly treated during Carnival days. If I’m at Nadur and see a mouse glued to a stick and the mouse is still alive I’ll have a problem with that. But I would tolerate a bird in a cage, as long as the bird is not being in any way hurt. We should also be extra careful when we deal with big animals, like cows or donkeys, which can go through really a hard time because of the noise or because of the crowds. There won’t be problems if one takes all precautions and learn how to respect animals.

If Nadur is a rural community, its Carnival has to reflect its rurality. And animals are part of rural life.

Wake Up!

It’s time for your Local Council to start to do some serious brain storming on this issue. You are spending money to organize a Carnival which is NOT yours! That’s just a photocopy. Nadur’s Carnival was known for its genn and people used to say I am going to Nadur to see their genn and not to go to a place where I can hardly move because someone decreased the size of the road by lighting part of the street with floodlights and by placing two stages at two particular points of the road. 

There are so many people who used to dress up for Carnival and who no longer do so. I’ve spoken to so many of them. If tradition dies, it will be a real pity. If this tradition dies, you will no longer have a Carnival. You’ll have the same Carnival everyone has: the children’s Carnival. It is a very serious issue. We are still in time. But we have to act NOW.

Dr Cremona is currently writing "The History of Carnival in the Maltese Islands" - to be published soon.