In Basel, the carnival begins at four o’clock... in the dark

On the Monday following Ash Wednesday, the Basel carnival begins at four o’clock in the morning. The streets are darkened before the Morgenstreich. The party thus opens at an hour when one would rather wait for a sleepy city, with voluntarily limited light.

According to the Federal Office of Culture, only large lanterns carried or drawn and small lanterns worn on the masks of the piccolo players and drums are allowed. Other events include processions and satirical songs: costumes, images and local dialect are used to comment on the clumsiness of the past year.

The carnival was inscribed in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2017. Tuesdays reserve a place for children, while other musical ensembles intervene in the evening. But its opening remains particularly singular: to launch this visual festival, we begin by removing the ordinary lighting and revealing the one that the participants bring.