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Feature: Lisbon celebrates 10th edition of Int'l Iberian Masks Festival

Xinhua, May 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

The 10th edition of the International Iberian Masks Festival took place this weekend in Lisbon to celebrate both Portuguese and Spanish culture.

Groups from Portugal and Spain paraded in extravagant and fun costumes on Saturday, some armed with bull horns and colorful paper strings, wearing traditional aprons, as they danced and made noise with medieval bells.

One group did stick dances, clashing wooden sticks with their partners.

There were around 700 participants in total, divided into around 32 groups.

"We are celebrating 10 years of the festival so we decided to commemorate with a bigger dimension and a stronger program. It has been magnificent," Helder Ferreira, President of PROGESTUR, the association for the development of cultural tourism in Portugal, told Xinhua.

"We know the territories we work with very well, their rituals and who practices them, so we invite them and then our team deals with all the logistics to bring them here, in terms of transport and food," Ferreira adds.

Each group represented their region, and its historical and cultural context.

Almost all the groups work with natural materials like tree bark and feathers, and wear vibrant and colorful costumes, representing themes like fertility and solstice, while some are based on animals or even diabolic and more scary figures depending on the ritual.

There was plenty of interaction between the masked groups parading and the public, who danced and took pictures of the parade.

There are also around 30 exhibitors selling traditional Iberian gastronomy, where people can try cheeses and meats form many different regions, and participate in cooking shows and workshops.

At night, visitors can enjoy traditional folk music concerts.

Ferreira told Xinhua the budget for the festival was very low and was mainly self-funded by the participants, highlighting the event's importance for the country's tourism sector. He also said the event attracted many academics worldwide, interested in getting to know more about these Iberian rituals.

The festival began on May 7 and ended on Sunday. Endit