Bologna: PerformAzioni Festival curated by Instabili Vaganti starts today
The thirteenth edition of the PerformAzioni festival entitled “One more step Beyond Borders”, conceived and organized by the Instabili Vaganti theater company. It will take place in two parts, the first one from May 24th to 31st and the second from September 1st to the 8th, situated around the city of Bologna and its municipality.
This is a special edition because it marks the twenty years of activity of Instabili Vaganti, which however coincide with a complex moment in their journey: After 15 years of assiduous work in the territory of the Barca area, with the direction of the LIV Performing Arts Centre, beign an undisputed cultural and contemporary outpost of the outskirts of the city they’ve found themselves without a workspace, a headquarters and a home. This climate of uncertainty that places the founders and artists of the company, facing a new challenge, a new “border” to cross, has therefore inspired the title and concept of this edition, as can be seen from the words of Nicola Pianzola, playwright of the company:
“Taking another step beyond the border, diving into the void, walking with light steps and open arms towards the unknown, accepting the continuous challenges and facing adversity, putting yourself on the line once again, even after 20 years of assiduous research, even when you think you have built something lasting and stable. Being aware of one’s own transience, of the consubstantial condition of precariousness of the artist, of the ephemeral evanescence of the theater, of that “good place” that we have created in pursuit of a utopia. It is essential then, to continue to create this space of sharing, a space suspended in time, which pushes artists from all over the world to cross a border to continue creating together. PerformAzioni could disappear or travel with us, we don’t know yet. What we are certain of is that we want to share our journey once again, with the artists who have accompanied us and who will accompany us, and above all with you: our students, our companions, our audience. With this spirit we will meet again, not in a single space, but in different places from which we can glimpse new horizons and perspectives, which allow us to create together, to overcome the difficulties that hinder our artistic freedom, to take a further step “Beyond the Borders”.
The artists who form the program of this thirteenth edition of the festival come from Asia, the Americas, Africa, and obviously from Italy. All of them holding workshops, masterclasses, work demonstrations, performances, work in progress, site-specific and itinerant shows, in contact with natural and historical spaces of the territory.
PerformAzioni Program May 24-31
The opening show, on May 24th at 8:30 pm at the Laboratorio San Filippo Neri in Bologna, will be “Confini”, a Theater and Dance performance with an international cast (Italy, India, Venezuela, Tunisia, USA) and the result of a research process around the theme of the “border” developed in the international project Beyond Borders, through an artistic residency at the Teatro Comunale di Savigno, in Valsamoggia, held from May 18th to the 22nd.
Confini is a project in which performers dig into: their own past, their own cultural and performative traditions, to understand the present, to tell through gestures, actions, texts and songs, the limits they have had to overcome, the borders they have tried to cross to affirm their identity, and the new challenges that await them. Thus interpersonal reflections emerge that link individual experiences to collective ones. Examining issues that particularly concern the artists’ countries of origin: panic attacks generated by the fear of expressing one’s gender identity, the disillusionment born with the restoration after the Arab Spring, the sharpening of religious differences in tolerant countries like India, the ordeal of migrants trying to cross a border.
The following day, May 25th, starting at 11:00, the theoretical-practical symposium entitled “One more step Beyond Borders” will be held. A focus on the international project Beyond Borders, directed since 2020 by Instabili Vaganti and winner of two editions of the MiC Boarding Pass Plus call. Speakers, professors, artists and international guests involved in this complex project that boasts prestigious partners in Italy (ATER Fondazione, Accademia perduta / Romagna Teatri, La MaMa Umbria International) and in various countries around the world (Chile, India, Senegal, Malaysia, United States) will take part. During the symposium there will be practical workshops, work demonstrations, video works and short documentary films, performances and performance extracts, and a networking session between foreign and local companies and artists.
After a brief introduction by director Anna Dora Dorno and playwright Nicola Pianzola (Instabili Vaganti), supported for the occasion by Antonella Babbone (ATER Fondazione – Teatro Laura Betti di Casalecchio di Reno), the symposium will open with a series of panels in which the artists who are part of the project will talk about the stages of work developed in their respective countries. Moderating there will be Francesca Giuliani, Research Fellow at the Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies of the University of Urbino.
In the afternoon, at 2:30 pm, it will be the turn of Daniela Sacco – PhD Researcher in Performing Arts Department of Project Cultures – Iuav University of Venice, who will offer new decolonial perspectives on Intercultural Theatre. Following, at 14:30 3:30 p.m., Ángel Hernández, Mexican playwright and founder of Teatro Para el Fin del Mundo, will illustrate his dramaturgical and visual project “Archivo entreguerras” developed through long periods of research and creation in conflict zones. In particular, the collection of monologues written during his stay in Gaza, entitled “Humo oscuro del cielo de Gaza”, will be presented as a national premiere. At the end of his speech, Nicola Pianzola will perform the first of the texts, entitled “Rafah, alimentando la nube de polvo”, translated by him for the occasion into Italian and which marks the beginning of a collaboration with the Mexican playwright on this project of translation and staging of the cycle of texts dedicated to Gaza.
A networking session will follow that will involve artists and companies from the area, including Sblocca 5 and Teatro Nucleo. At 5:00 pm the practical workshop “Millenial footsteps & traditional songs” will begin, directed by the international artists of the Beyond Borders project and aimed at actors, dancers, singers, students, and interested parties. The workshop is free to attend upon registration for the conference on the website of the Instabili Vaganti company or the international project Beyond Borders.
At 6:00 pm the following performances will begin: “Memories of a madman” with the Venezuelan actor and psychologist Angel Pelay; “The rich heritage of Nagamia”, a practical demonstration of songs and dances from Nagaland, a state in the North East of India, by Tafma; “Memories of Grief”, a performance and demonstration of classical Indian dance Bharatanatyam by Ahum Trust. At the end of this day of studies, there will be, at 8:30 pm, the screening of the film “La parte maledetta – Viaggio ai confini del teatro – Paola Bianchi” by Teatro Akropolis, in the presence of the authors David Beronio and Clemente Tafuri.
The closing show of this first part of the program, on May 31st at 8:30 pm at the Teatro Laura Betti in Casalecchio di Reno (BO), in collaboration with ATER Fondazione, one of the partners of the international project Beyond Borders, will be “Distance”: 10 micro-performances by young international authors (Italy, Serbia, India, USA, Tunisia, Venezuela) with the artistic supervision of Instabili Vaganti, the result of a residency period from May 28th to 30th, at the Teatro Laura Betti.
The show is born from an investigation into the general theme of “borders” and the physical, geographical, social and interpersonal distance generated by them. All of which finds unity in a narrative line, a montage of actions, videos, images and sounds, directed by Anna Dora Dorno.
Distance, remoteness, absence, impotence in the face of an insurmountable limit, a frontier, a prison, war situations, are the sensations that move the performers’ bodies in space and inspire their texts, to reiterate that all borders can be overcome, frontiers torn down, limits challenged through art, theatre, dance.
Previews for PerformAzioni 1-8 September
The PerformAzioni festival does not end here, it returns, from 1st to 8th September, with a second part of the festival designed for the open spaces of the Valsamoggia municipality: from the suggestive historical places of the Rocca dei Bentivoglio in Bazzano, to the paths of the park of the Abbey of Monteveglio, and other locations that will become a natural stage for companies of the national theater scene such as: Teatro del Lemming, Teatro Nucleo, Teatro delle Selve, Teatro dell’Orsa, Mulino ad Arte, Pilar Ternera.
The 2024 edition of the festival is organized in collaboration with Mismaonda, ATER Fondazione, Tafma – Government of Nagaland, Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Caracas and with the support of MIC Ministero della Cultura, Comune di Bologna, Comune di Valsamoggia, Regione Emilia-Romagna, Città Metropolitana di Bologna as part of Bologna Estate 2024.
“PerformAzioni could disappear or travel with us, we don’t know yet. What we are sure of is that we want to share our journey once again, with the artists who have accompanied us and who will accompany us, and above all with you: our students, our companions, our audience. With this spirit we will meet again, not in a single space, but in different places from which we can glimpse new horizons and perspectives, which allow us to create together, to overcome the difficulties that hinder our artistic freedom, to take a further step “Beyond the Borders”.
Info
Participation in the workshops and the conference is free but with limited availability. Register here.
Entrance to the shows at the Oratorio San Filippo Neri is free but with limited availability. Reservation: oratoriosanfilipponeri@mismaonda.eu SMS 349 761 9232