The Cilentart Fest 2024, now in its fourth edition, will kick off on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, thanks to the support of the Teatro Pubblico Campano, the Ministry of Culture, and the Campania Region. The project, which confirms the artistic direction of Alfredo Balsamo and Vittorio Stasi, will promote art and live performances in the enchanting locations of Cilento. National and international artists will enliven the municipalities of Capaccio Paestum, Agropoli, San Giovanni a Piro, Centola, Perito, Moio Della Civitella, Omignano, and Gioi, transforming them into centers of cultural aggregation. Visitors can stop in these places to enjoy performances that have made theater history, concerts by musicians who blend different styles without betraying their roots, and discover choreographies that delve into the roots of our culture. It will be possible to wander through the villages, listen to the voices of those places, accompanied by itinerant paths and stories created especially for the spectators. Those who wish to learn more about the secrets of this art will not be disappointed, as this year will once again feature theater workshops led by masters of acting, writing, dance, and criticism, with the TeC lab curated by the editorial staff of Teatro e Critica. “For this edition, we have imagined a truly important artistic program,” emphasize directors Alfredo Balsamo and Vittorio Stasi, “designed for everyone, where theater meets dance and music approaches the circus, giving particular value to special projects that interact significantly with local communities, recognizing the importance of a reciprocal and enriching dialogue.” The Festival’s programming, although heterogeneous and eager to offer a broad vision of contemporary live performances, is connected by themes that can be considered the common thread of this edition: “knowing the past to understand the future.” Many prose performances on the bill, in fact, seek answers in today’s behaviors by delving into past stories, such as Ivan and the Dogs, a multi-award-winning text by Hattie Naylor translated by Monica Capuani, which will see Federica Rosellini on stage confronting the tragic history of 1990s Russia, and Ascanio Celestini with his Le nozze di Antigone. After a tour of almost 300 performances, the winner of the “Premio Le Maschere del Teatro Italiano miglior monologo 2022,” La vita davanti a sé, based on the Goncourt Prize-winning novel of 1975, will return to the stage. The poignant story of Momo, an Arab boy who forms a deep friendship that transcends cultural boundaries and prejudices with Madame Rosa, a former Jewish prostitute who escaped the Holocaust, will be brought to life by an outstanding actor like Silvio Orlando. Massimiliano Gallo and Lina Sastri, respectively with Stasera, punto e a capo! and La mia musica, invite us to reflect on our identities, relationships, and choices, drawing from their life experiences dedicated to art and the stage. Saverio La Ruina, one of the most influential author-actors of contemporary theater (also a tutor of a masterclass on “monologue” in Centola), with his two most successful shows Dissonorata and Via Del Popolo, will touch on themes very present and current in the news, homes, and lives of many people, by telling the stories of small villages in Calabria. As always at Cilentart Fest, there will be space for research and avant-garde with Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella (Golden Lions for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale 2018) and their Io, and the great performance of Paolo Nani in La lettera, a show with over thirty years and more than 1800 performances worldwide, up to the itinerant paths designed by Collettivo Lunazione in Cilento Hosting. The dance and music sections see, in the study of the past, the possibility of better understanding society and the dynamics that still pervade it today. This is the case of Save the last dance for me choreographed by Alessandro Sciarroni, inspired by the “Polka Chinata,” a courtship dance performed by men since the early 1900s, now practiced by only five people worldwide. Rediscovering the past and giving new life to a nearly extinct dance will also be the focus of the workshop conducted by Sciarroni’s dancers in Moio Della Civitella. Musical research comes into contact with myth, this time, thanks to Andrea Baracco directing a performance on Ovid’s Metamorphoses with the group Munedaiko and actress Nina Pons, while the analysis of our new habits and how they influence sociality will be the focus of Finger Food by Marco Laudani and Claudio Scalia. For the major concerts of Cilentart Fest, we will witness the recovery of classical traditions contaminated by the funk of the Campanian musical tradition thanks to Napoleone, the typical Neapolitan tradition’s irony of the Ebbanesis with their Bek Steig, the musical innovation of I Virtuosi Italiani protagonists of two dawn concerts, and the gospel and soul notes of Midnight Again by A Toys Orchestra. The actors of the La Mansarda company, directed and guided by Maurizio Azzurro and Roberta Sandias, will transform their cart/van into a stage to entertain the audience with typical commedia dell’arte scenarios with Antica Famiglia Fratelli Buffardi. For an inclusive artistic project like Cilentart Fest, a section dedicated to children could not be missing, with shows ranging from the circus spectacle of La Baracca dei Buffoni to the legends and fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm with Hamelin by Tonio De Nitto, winner of the “Premio Eolo 2023 as the best show for new generations.” The appointment is, therefore, from next July 31, to spend another glimpse of summer together, enjoy the wonders of Cilento, and savor its ancient history, with the works of all the participating authors, in the vein of a research on the ever-present past, which continues to manifest itself to us and guide us in the search for who we are.
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