The project of the Menoventi company concludes the journey begun in January with the “Meme” workshops. The processions will start from the most significant places in the city and will converge in Piazza del Popolo
Seven parades that will follow the streets traveled by the water a year ago and will converge in Piazza del Popolo: not a show, but a collective ritual to exorcise the trauma and fear of the flood organized in Faenza by the Menoventi/E Production theater company. The appointment is Thursday 16 May at 7pm.
«The floods of 3 and 16 May imposed a ferocious altimetric lottery that split the city in two: a few meters are enough to outline the trajectory of a life; someone stays above, someone ends up below. However, we have seen that the privileged half of the city has tried to reduce the distance between the two sides; people – unlike the river – can decide which path to follow and sometimes choose to walk uphill and swim back upstream because they want to smooth out the differences. This desire for solidarity is the foundation of the community, and unfortunately we need to witness a disaster to remember it.”
Consuelo Battiston and Gianni Farina, founders of Menoventi, have been organizing the Meme training course and the related festival for over 12 years. In 2024 they decided to reconfigure this path in three free workshops open to citizens, which from January to May addressed the wound left by the flood with the language of theater and developed a ritual in which all citizens are invited to participate on the 16th May. The workshops, like the parade, were created to create a meeting and exchange point, to talk about one’s experience and share a traumatic memory. «Testing publicly allows you to feel part of a cohesive community. Wearing the dramatic force of the catastrophe and returning it publicly is an act that requires courage, it is a gesture that equates the citizens involved with tragic heroes and strengthens them through a choir: a city of solidarity that has come to the square to listen to their voice”, they communicate. by the association.
The first route it will start from the Osservanza Cemetery and will be guided by the kids who participated in the “Meme Bubble” workshop led by Beatrice Cevolani, which embraces the Orto Bertoni neighborhood and overlooks Marzeno and the hill. Sar Team Faenza participates with dogs trained in rescue, a representation of local farmers, the musical group La Carampana and the popular dance group, which will enliven the collective finale in the Square.
The second it will start from Piazzetta Ferniani, the meeting point in the area between Via Lapi and Via Calamelli. The procession will follow the blue dragon created by the Fatti d’Arte Association together with volunteers from the neighborhood, supported by the children of the Il Girasole nursery school and Save the Children. From the Artistation music school the third parade will start, which will join the great parade at Piazza Lanzoni, near the Ponte delle Grazie. The children who participated in the “Meme Di Voce in Voce” workshop conducted by Ermelinda Nasuto will be supported by Scuola Carchidio, Società Ciclistica Faentina, Anffas, Museo Guerrino Tramonti and the ceramic workshops Lia Cavassi and Monica Ortelli.
A composite path, which crosses Corso Garibaldi starting from 4 symbolic places. Participants in the “Fluire” workshop for adults led by Gianni Farina will lead the parade that starts in front of the headquarters of the CGIL in Borgotto. At the height of Piazza San Francesco the realities of Via della Croce and its surroundings will come together: the Pirazzini primary school, the “La Vecchia Faenza” shop, the Carlo Zauli Museum, the citizens of Via Ponte Romano and all the districts who, in solidarity with the only team of the Palio devastated by the water, will leave together from the Rione Nero. They will be joined by the Faenza Writers and Publishers Committee and the Solaroli Company at the height of the steps of the Duomo. The Theater Two Worlds will lead the parade that starts from the Torricelli-Ballardini high school, home of the laboratory dedicated to the theme of the flood, with the help of the participants in the theater journey Without borders – stories above and below the water.
The former Salesian complex hosts the departure of the procession led by the marching band of the Giuseppe Sarti School of Music and the Tommaso Minardi School of Art and by the boys of Faventia Calcio. Lastly, the Manfrediana Library will arrive in the square accompanied by the writer Cristiano Cavina.
At the end of the walk, each group involved will be asked to leave a mark in Piazza del Popolo to symbolically share their experience, but also and above all to find new energy through sharing to look to the future. In the center of the square, the heart of the city, a scenography will be set up, curated by the architect Andrea Montesi, which will host the signs and acts that constitute the collective rite: a large river-snake, whose head recalls the profile of the Ponte delle Grazie .
The routes are made possible by the support of voluntary associations, such as Anc Faenza, Anc Gruppo Sbarretti, Anpana Faenza, Associazione Nazionale Carabinieri 85 Nucleo, Volunteering and Civil Protection and Volunteer Ecological Guards, and the entire project was carried out with the contribution of Ministry of Culture and the Emilia Romagna Region, with the patronage of the Municipality of Faenza and the support of the Hera Group and GranFrutta Zani.
