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Streetparade 2

Strba Annelies - Streetparade 2 (30'' Preview)

1999
SD PAL, 4:3, Colour, Sound, 16'

Streetparade 2 is about the ancient custom of a nighttime procession in Beckenried in the canton of Nidwalden. In the latter, some five hundred people carry so-called «Tricheln» (a kind of bell made of hammered pig iron whose dull sound is characteristic of the procession) and about a hundred wear «Iffelen» (coloured cut-out «hats» in the shape of a bishop's mitre, illuminated from the inside by a candle). The St Nicholas Day procession known as the «Beggrieder Samichlais-Izug» also includes «Geisselchlöpfe» (the cracking of whips); on that day, the first of the «Trichler» are already underway in the outlying areas of the village and by the evening the procession enters the centre of the village. [...] The procession in Beckenried, too, seems unreal, almost uncanny, recalling a ritual invocation of spirits.