The mask beyond the scene

The popular traditions, based on disguises, have their origins in ancient festivals, which are very different among them. In these artistic events there is a large opening to human sentiments and thoughts: they are meetings where all peoples converge with their social, ethnic, economic, polit-ical and religious differences. In these traditional celebrations the daily life is built on imagina-tion, on games and it allows a continuous enrichment and ex-change of cultural knowledge. These urban festivals allow to build forms of art often unique. Among these artistic events we identify the Carnival, a city festival that, in the West, has origin in ancient ceremonies of the Greek and the Roman period. These traditions are survivals of ancient purification rituals. However today the Carnival has become a symbol of meetings that take place in public spaces of the city where you can meet people with different cultural backgrounds. All this allows to en-joy and share traditional and artistic expressions of different cultures in large festivals with in-teresting diversities. The 1st International Symposium, Dialogue among cultures. Carnivals in the worlds has offered a reflection on the international Value of Intangible Heritage as defined by UNESCO: practices, representations, knowledge and techniques that facilitate a strong sense of cultural identity (UNESCO, Declaration of 2003) among the communities, groups and individu-als. This Cultural Heritage can be appreciated in different sectors of human activity: art, eco-nomics, sociology, anthropology, architecture, engineering, etc.. So the Carnival plays an im-portant role in the cultural world because it proposes the protection of an important traditional heritage and the reinforcement of the cultural and social integration between East and West. Another very important aspect of the Carnival is the education towards the popular culture that can be seen as a fundamental educational process for the new generations to promote knowledge of the history and the value of their local heritage. The academic aim of the 1st International Symposium was the analysis of the issues related to the urban festivals and masquerades that take place, with different methods, in many countries of the world. The congress was born with the scope to deepen the knowledge of different and multicultural expressions that occur in public and urban spaces for the cultural dialogue, for the integration and the respect of differences (UNESCO, Declaration of 2005). For this reason the 1st International Symposium has promoted a space for intercultural dialogue between the scien-tific community, the local community and future generations, with the aim of sharing different methods to understand the tradition of the Carnival around the world. The International Symposium has coordinated by Olimpia Niglio (Italy), international expert in conservation of cultural heritage and expert in cultural management and Claudia Afanador (Colombia), anthropologist and Director Chair Carnival in Pasto (Colombia). More than 60 speakers which took part in the Symposium have arrived from 21 countries of the world and 3 continents: America, Europe, Oceania.