CARNIVAL OF CULTURES 2011
A SUMMARY

The 16th Edition of the Carnival of Cultures in Berlin
Streetparade 12th June (Whitsunday) 12.30 pm – 9 pm
Street Festival 10th June – 13th June (Friday to Monday)
Children's Carnival 11th June (Saturday)

This year the Carnival of Cultures turned 16 years old. The most colourful, diverse and vivid festival of Berlin enchanted 1,36 million visitiors over the Pentecost weekend 2011.

Visitors to the German capital, and "Kiezbewohner" alike, experienced the unique atmosphere of Berlin when the metropolis showed itself at it's best: cosmopolitan, multicultural and passionate.

The street parade on Whitsunday/Pentacost (12th June)

is the highlight of the festival. The celebratory procession, which lasted about eight hours, featured around 4,700 participants from 70 different nations. Impressive masks, artistic costumes and magnificent floats astonished hundreds of thousands of visitors. The creativity and commitment of the volunteers turned the streets into a platform for Berlin's culture scene. Innovative and tradition-concious, subversive and striking, ambivalent and multilayered - the creative potential of Berlin found an appropriate stage.

The street festival of the Carnival of Cultures

was the place to be in order to discover culinary seducements, beautiful and original arts and crafts and other goods offerered by more than 300 booths.
The so called "Grüner Bereich" on Blücherstraße not only sold delicious organic food, and astonished visitors with percussion performances on trash cans. This was the area where initiatives consulted about sustainability in everybody's everyday life.
Music makes the world go round – The soundtrack for the festival was delivered by roughly 780 artists on four stages. Music lovers of all ages, put on their shoes to jump around to hungurian Speed Folk, sing along to Chansons from the Mediterrainian, were charmed by Maloyamusic from Réunion or taped their toes to Mestizo-Cumbia Groove.
The lawn in the centre of the festival area turned into a buzzing field where wizzards, witches and moving houses inspired kids and adults alike to become discover their own creativity and where interaction between artists and visitors blazed with passion.

Partys

For those whose feet are irrepressible, different partys und festivals – organised by partners of the Carnival of Cultures – offered a fantastic chance to experience the multifarious music- and dance scene of Berlin. Afrobeat, Latin-Rock or Flamenco – everyone who was searching for rhythm found the right beat to dance the whole night through.

The Children's Carnival (11th June)

– organised by the Kreuzberger Musikalische Aktion – is one of the biggest family attractions all year. This year the kids were inspired by the theme
"Dance with the tiger", creating their own imaginative parade. Afterwards the families were invited to continue the party at Görlitzer Park where the youngsters presented their artistic skills on stage.

The Werkstatt der Kulturen is the initiator and organizer of the Carnival of Cultures and is located in Berlin-Neukölln. It’s a place for international exchange, where people of different nationalities, cultures and religions come together.

1.36 millionen visitors attended the Carnival of Cultures 2011.

Office Carnival of Cultures

c/o Werkstatt der Kulturen
Nadja Mau, Stefanie Schatte and Vassiliki Gortsas
Wissmanstraße 32
12049 Berlin