The Carnival of Traditions 2023 – Ercolano = Legality + Tourism

On February 18 and 19 there will be the first edition of the Ercolano Carnival between traditions, legality and tourism. Two days full of artistic and cultural proposals to face illegality and launch positive messages looking at the traditions of the territory.
With the project “Ercolano = Legality + Tourism”, financed by the Metropolitan City of Naples, the “Carnival of Traditions” was born, desired by Mayor Ciro Buonajuto and Councilor for Tourism Anna Giuliano with the organizational support of the Axoloti Association.

All initiatives are free to attend and will take place with morning and afternoon appointments.

“An extraordinary program. Finally, after two years of restrictions, we can return to experience the magic of Carnival in Ercolano. A celebration aimed at children, teenagers, adults and families, all together to experience the beauty of our city. Two days to spend with music, floats, parades, shows and lots and lots of fun” – is what Ciro Buonajuto, mayor of Ercolano and national vice president of Anci, declares.

The Axoloti Association proposes its flagship format for the Ercolano Carnival, which has already been staged in the last four years at the Campania Teatro Festival and in numerous other contexts, from the Cilento National Park to the Filangieri Museum.
The proposal includes a talk-show-performance with numerous guests both at an academic and artistic level. The title of the conference is: “The roots of the future – a journey through the popular traditions of Campania”.

From 11am on Saturday 18th February at Villa Campolieto the following will be present:
Ciro Buonajuto (Mayor of Ercolano), Felice Casucci (Councillor for Tourism of the Campania Region), Rosanna Romano (regional director of the culture sector), Prof. Antonio Piccirillo (coopers of Macerata Campania), Roberto D'Agnese (Carnival of Montemarano), Mario Cerchione (La zeza of Mercogliano), Pina Speranza (Cilento Tarant), Prof. Ugo Vuoso (professor of anthropology at the University of Salerno and president of the Campania ethnographic center), Benedetto Casillo (actor) and Luca Rossi (La Candelora).
Following the speech by Prof. Giuseppe Torre (visiting professor of the integral ecology laboratory of the Pontifical University Antonianum) on the topic “Carnival and the Ecology of Culture”.

During the conference, the initiative for the mapping of national and international Carnivals will be launched. From an idea by Roberto D'Agnese, the "Global Carnival or the first world mapping" starts from Ercolano, a project open to all Carnivals who want to take part and which intends to catalogue, and create a dialogue, between the initiatives related to Carnival spread throughout Italy and the world. To join, just fill out the form on the page www.carnevaleglobale.it

E=L+T is a spread event that began at Christmas, with the concert of the Choir of Maestro Carlo Morelli who performed at Villa Campolieto, and will continue until the Feast of the Assumption, on August 2023th, passing through Carnival XNUMX.

The project intends to impact on those festivities already naturally celebrated in the Ercolano community, enriching them with contents and proposals that go in the direction of offering tourists a regenerated image of Ercolano, which for years has been a land of criminal conflicts and which for years has begun a long but essential path of restoring legality at all levels, social, political and cultural.

Legality, identity and beauty are therefore the three pillars on which it rests. In fact, it starts from the belief that only by changing the narrative of the territory and its history can a new season of development be built, especially in the tourism sector.

On February 18th and 19th, allegorical floats will be set up with the theme of legality and beauty and will parade throughout the city accompanied by the popular and contaminated music of DJ SANGENNAROBAR, but there will also be performances of popular music from the Vesuvian, Irpinia and Cilento areas.

All around, street artists' shows with companies of high artistic caliber that will literally illuminate the city with games of light and fire. On stage in the streets of Ercolano there will be Giovanni Nulleamai with the fire show "Il Sogno", La Baracca dei Buffoni who with their suggestive elegance will parade presenting the project "Fleur". Also awaited are the parades and parades that will follow the allegorical floats inspired by pro-legality themes.

The first day will end with a great concert in Piazza Trieste by the renowned Luca Rossi, and Baccano Sound, now defined as the best representative of the musical traditions of Southern Italy. The soul of southern music in a live concert marked by the primordial beat of the tammorra. Luca Rossi and his band play music that is both celebration and prayer at the same time. The tammurriata, the rhythm of the Taranta, the tribal culture that unites all the peoples of the Mediterranean.

The following day the parades, the parades and the processions of the allegorical floats with music and the show “Tra le nuvole” (once again by La Baracca dei Buffoni), will be repeated from 16pm starting from Piazza Pugliano and finishing at 18pm in the same square with the comedy show by I Ditelo Voi.

The trio formed by Lello Ferrante, Mimmo Manfredi and Francesco De Fraia is among the longest-running of the new Neapolitan comedy scene and is characterized by their lyrics, of which they are also authors, that range from the surreal to the current: themes that act as a backdrop to their spontaneity and their strong sense of improvisation. Since the mid-90s they have been protagonists in cinema and on TV (Rai2, Italia1) with sketches and hilarious appearances that have made them known to the general public especially for the bitter and surreal irony that makes you think expressed in “Gomorroidi”.