Archetipi che si manifestano, in ogni tempo e in ogni luogo, a condizione che l’essere umano sappia ancora interagire con il profondo Mistero della vita, concentrandosi su ciò che è più che su ciò che ha.


Man is a little himself when he speaks in the first person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth. (Oscar Wilde)


The mask, in every culture, reveals an inner if deep and somehow "other", an intimate belonging to something greater. It has always played a role of transfer, freeing the human being from his contingent condition and allowing him unimaginable freedom for the common mortal. It is an essential part of the ritual use of the metaphor: man speaks of himself, of his deeper problems through metaphor and allegory, or if you prefer proverbs. The etymological meaning of the words helps and unveils: Metàphora comes from the Greek half (beyond) and Phéro (bring) or take over, elsewhere; allegory, always from the Greek, is composed of àllos (other) and agoréio (express); proverb, from the Latin provérbium joins the words pro (forward) and vérum (word). Obviously this happens with a ritual mode, whose natural seat is the theater. Also in this case the etymology helps: the Greek root from the word theater is tayma, admiration, wonder .. The theater is a ritual, be it Greek, Japanese, English or Neapolitan and is present wherever we must express admiration or wonder, and the ritual is accomplished through the use of de / formation of the usal traits of the human form, mainly of his face: here is the mask, normally the object that is worn, but also the conscious alteration of one's own somatic features. It can be said, for example, that Totò was a mask, and it is no coincidence that the revaluation of his work began with a text that had the title "Totò, the man and the mask". The loss and trivialization of our roots has gradually turned us away from the ritual dimension until we lose the sense of what we want to represent, which often reduces to mere appearance. In traditional non-European cultures the ritual dimension is very much alive, and the Mask is still giant. In traditional African cultures it is an instrument of the community through which Divinity and Ancestors manifest themselves to dialogue with men, to help, console or punish: The Dan of the Ivory Coast make their masks dance to evoke ancestral spirits who defend and protect the village at the Yoruba of Nigeria (in many other African peoples) justice is administered by wearing a mask that relates directly to the heritage of wisdom and justice of the Ancestors and legitimizes the responsibility of judgment, almost everywhere the fundamental moments of life (the transition from adolescence to adulthood, death) are evoked and accompanied by a specific mask. The quiet serenity of the Punu masks is a splendid example. Hunting as the collection of food, are propitiated by dances that require the use of specific masks. The Dugn'bé ritual mask, (Bijugo culture, Ginea Bissau, Bissago Islands.) Dancing prepares and instructs young people to hunt, the Guerés prepare for battle with dances in which specific masks are worn. Thousands of kilometers away, other cultures still use the mask in the same ritual ways. The oceanic cultures have a significant strength in the mask, and it appears in every ritual dimension that marks the life of people and communities: often the entrance "on stage" is less dynamic and more iericatic, and the masks are not worn only from people but also from objects. A Papua N.G. the rituals that accompany the sweet potato harvest - together with food and the symbolic element of those cultures - provide for the decoration of the great tubers with specific masks. Even the rites of passage are marked by masks: it is significant, for example, the use of the Jipae mask: It comes from the Asmat people of Irian Jaya (West New Guinea). It is worn during the homonymous celebration "Jipae", a celebration of the passage of the dead from the world of people to the spirit world. It is also


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