Umbria Danza Festival 2024, celebrating 30 years of Dance Gallery
A festival attentive to the environment and gender equality and for this reason it hosts 16 male and female choreographers, 25 male performers and 34 female performers. Dance, performing arts and body languages: 29 shows, 20 companies including 4 foreign, 1 production, 5 co-productions, 9 national premieres, 1 community project, 8 spaces, masterclasses, meetings, screenings and an exhibition dedicated to Alwin Nikolais.
Celebration, is the title-claim of the 2024 edition of Umbria Danza Festival, the event, presented on Wednesday 8 May at the Sant’Anna Complex in Perugia, which brings the best of national and international contemporary dance productions to the city.
2024 is the year that marks 30 years of Dance Gallery’s presence and activity in Umbria, a great celebration of dance and its languages, its protagonists and the history of the Association itself.
Celebration as a hymn to life, to the return of loved ones and the meeting of new ones, to the beauty of dance in all its forms and to dance as a vehicle of contemporaneity, reality and the future. This edition of the festival sees on stage artists and companies that have marked its long journey: Abbondanza Bertoni, Sosta Palmizi, Zerogrammi and Aldes, as well as the numerous dancers who have accompanied its growth in these three decades and who return as protagonists of shows and performances created ad hoc.
As Valentina Romito, director of Dance Gallery and of the festival, explained: «We celebrate a history (ours too), that of dance, which still has a lot to say and a lot to offer to our communities. We celebrate collective participation, the experience of watching, of practicing, of talking; with our senses alert to what we are experiencing, to the changes in society and with an open heart to the sustainability of our lives.”
The festival is an innovative and trans-generational container designed to bring different audiences closer to the languages of contemporary dance in an exceptional architectural context. A dimension of widespread festival, which caters to the city and citizens with particular attention to the new generations which unfolds between the Sant’Anna Monumental Complex, in the Borgo Bello district, the Medieval Garden, the Cutu Hall and the National Gallery of Umbria.
The following spoke at the press conference:
Antonella Pinna, director of the Cultural Resources Valorization Service, Museums, Archives and Libraries, Umbria Region, who recalled how: «This is an action and an activity that is not sporadic, but rather structured, which is leaving its mark and which is contributing to create an aware public. As a Region we are also very happy with the Kids edition, which has the recognition of the Umbria culture for family brand.”
Fabrizio Stazi, Perugia Foundation: «UDF won our funding in the sustainable cultural events tender. In the proposal we received, the aspect of sustainability was fully captured, both in the themes proposed in the performances and in the form of the festival. Furthermore, the intergenerational aspect of the proposal was of great value; in addition to the fact of having brought together different local entities, associations, bodies, foundations”.
Marina Bon Valsassina of the National Gallery of Umbria, who will host an event in the Sala Maggiore, recalled how: «The experience we had last year tells us that the museum is exactly the right place for these moments, because dance it is nothing other than a drawing through the body, a drawing in movement, a search for meaning and truth which in the Gallery dialogues with “our” “static” images. Static images that return their movement and momentum to the performers themselves in a very interesting dialogue.”
Also speaking at the conference were Marco Betti, Teatro Stabile dell’Umbria, and David Grohmann, director of CAMS/University of Perugia. Conclusion for the Mayor Andrea Romizi, who underlined: «The seriousness and value of the work that Dance Gallery has carried out in Perugia over the years on a theme, perhaps still perceived as “difficult”, but which in reality represents one of the most complete artistic expressions which also includes and exalts the other arts. This – he said – is a festival which, in addition to showing us the strength, languages and expressiveness of dance, ensures that magnificent places in our city enter into dialogue with the artists and the public.”
From 30 May to 28 July the most evocative places in Perugia will host the third edition of the Festival directed by Valentina Romito. The festival takes place in two periods: from 30 May to 5 June the KIDS section and from 23 to 28 July for the main program in a widespread festival dimension.
The spaces of the S.Anna complex between the Cloister and the former chapel, the gym and the study room come alive in the morning with masterclasses and participatory projects, in the afternoon with one or more proposals by young people and short programs – Giorgia Lolli, Emanuele Rosa , Filippo Porro, Caterina Basso and Teresa Noronha Feio, Alice Gosti, Fabritia D’Intino – and in the evening, in the setting of the 14th century Cloister, a proposal of tout public shows, by the young and ironic Cie. M&F of Maxime and Francesco with Ca ira_outdoor, to foreign guests, from Ninarello and Bertozzi to the intense and poetic duet of Duel by the Abbondanza Bertoni company.
The choice to create the KIDS section arises from the need to look far ahead, to trace new trajectories and give value and space to choreographic writings dedicated to childhood and adolescence and to make the value accessible, usable and visible to school communities and families. social, educational and health prevention of dance through meetings with artists and direct practical experience.
Zeta, like the latest ones by Federica Loredan, a co-production of the festival, sees the active participation of students from the second year of the middle school attached to the Artistic B. high school in Betto, just as the Athletes community project, also a co-production of the festival, sees together a group of women of different ages, professional and sports dancers. First show of the Kids section on May 30th, at 10am, with the matinee of “Re_Play”, a dance and spoken solo poised between personal and public, real and fake, in dialogue with everyday technology.
By re-enacting memories and an archive of images, Giselda Ranieri experiments with the use of the device as a potential witness, an other gaze, a bodily surrogate, useful for facilitating a distancing from oneself. Sala Cutu – Piazza Giordano Bruno, 9 Perugia. Rerun open to the public in the evening at 7.30pm.
«For the July program – continues Valentina Romito – I chose male and female artists and companies following some guidelines such as support for young choreography and generational turnover, female choreography, the discovery of new international authors who cross consolidated companies in the panorama national”.
THE MAIN PROGRAM FOR JULY
In fact, it is inaugurated 23 July with Virgilio Sieni and his Danza Cieca together with Giuseppe Comuniello, a blind dancer with whom the choreographer shared years of research and initiation into movement
The July 24th is the Special day – Dance Gallery 30th anniversary, a day event dedicated to the celebration of 30 years of Dance Gallery with a non-stop program that brings together dancers, artists, students and partners of Dance Gallery with masterclasses in the morning, in the afternoon performances created ad hoc by the artists (and former students) Sara Maurizi and the duo BaroneGosti and ends with the debut of TerraCarne, with the choreography entrusted to Stefano Mazzotta, director of Zerogrammi, which sees six exceptional female performers on stage: Sara Orselli (soloist C. Carlson ) Eleonora Chiocchini (Abbondanza Bertoni) Amina Amici (Zerogrammi) Cecilia Ventriglia and Daria Menichetti (Sosta Palmizi), Chiara Michelini (Teatropersona/A.Serra) authors and performers of national and international standing.
All the artists of the day share the same training which took place in Perugia with the artistic director of the festival Valentina Romito. At the end of the evening, party and DJ set.
The July 25th on stage at the Galleria Nazionale Danze Americane by Fabrizio Favale; Ombelichi Tenui by Zambelli – Porro, double evening with Winter Forest by Favale First Things by Michael Getman.
The July 26 we propose the debut of the co-production of Caterina Basso and Teresa Noronha Feio/Aldes in A Cloud Never Dies, the Compagnia Simona Bucci with Solo In Due and the debut of the Compagnia M&F in Ca Ira Outdoor. On July 27th we start with All You Need Is by Em+/S’ala, followed by Don’t Worry, I Really Like It by Giorgia Lolli, Nexus with Onde and Crowded Bodies by Daniele Ninarello.
The closing of the Festival is entrusted to July 28 at Athletes Perugia, a participatory project by Simona Bertozzi, Duel by the Compagnia Abbondanza Bertoni, Tagada by Fabritia D’Intino & Daria Greco early in the morning at the Orto Medievale.
Grand finale with the A Badil company of Selim Ben Safia, French-Tunisian choreographer with the show El Botinière, name of a legendary cabaret in the center of Tunis which shows us the hidden side of Tunisian nightlife.
A WIDESPREAD AND SUSTAINABLE FESTIVAL: UDF is a container that has always been attentive to sustainability in social terms, guaranteeing extremely accessible ticket prices and reductions for families and other categories; environmental with careful measurement of the use of paper compared to digital and with the offer of meals from fair and sustainable trade thanks to the collaboration of Ponte Solidale. Thanks today to the support of the Perugia Foundation we are taking a step forward and have extended the network of partners to PEFC Italia which will support us for the environmental impact assessment and to Borgobello which, as a reference neighbourhood, supports the festival with a program of satellite events, all free, including theatrical views, workshops for parents and children, urban performances.
For information: [email protected] / tel.338.2345901 | www.dancegallery.it
Umbria Danza Festival (UDF) is created and promoted by Dance Gallery. It is supported by MIC (Ministry of Culture), Umbria Region, Perugia Foundation, with the patronage of the Municipality of Perugia and the collaboration of the Teatro Stabile dell’Umbria, CAMS – University Center for Scientific Museums – University of Perugia, National Gallery of ‘Umbria, ICPG 3, IO B.di Betto, Ass. Borgobello, Ponte Solidale, PEFC, Teatro di Sacco, Umbria Culture for Family.
