The Brabantsedag in Heeze comparing with carnival is for the builders as curses in the church. But this year they look for the edge for the first time, with the theme ‘carnival unmasked’. The sixteen wagon builders groups presented their designs on Sunday at the hardware store. There they showed that the Brabant Day, despite the theme, goes a few steps further. “We bring the deeper carnival stories that you don’t know yet.”
Dozens of people already received a taste on Sunday what will drive through the streets of Heeze on 31 August. Large building plans, miniature cars and the stories behind it: they could view it all. And everything in the stalls breathed carnival.
Is that not dangerous, if you have been calling for 66 years that the Brabant Day is absolutely not a carnival parade? “We indeed call this the largest theater parade in the Netherlands and not a parade. I understand that this theme is making it difficult, but the art is to put it down in such a way that it is not too carnivalesk,” says Robert van der Velden of the organization. “You just have to come and see to experience that.”
“This way you learn more about Brabant every year.”
The joy of carnival makes way for history and that can already be seen on Sunday. For example, the car of Friends Circle Hopeless shows the bombarded Roosendaal at the start of the Second World War. “Carnival was forbidden by the mayor, but there was one cafe in Roosendaal with crashing,” says Wagenbouwer Tessa. “The party just went on. We’re going to show that with a pub that moves up and down.”
She thinks it is a nice challenge to do something with carnival without making it carnivalesk. “If you walk around here you see that many groups have succeeded in it. I never knew that Roosendaal was bombed, so that way you learn more about Brabant every year.”
“Very nice that you see all those symbols coming back in the car.”
The cars all tell a different story about the carnival in different places in Brabant. The group of Martijn, for example, tells the story of Oeteldonk. “We show how carnival with the durskes, the farmers and the tricolor’s scarf originated. And why it is different there than in other places,” he explains.
His group has also become a bit wiser. “I did not know the story and even someone in our group who is Den Bosch expert did not know this yet. So it is very nice that you will see all those symbols that we still use with carnival in the car.”
