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05/22/2024 – Marche and Tuscany together for Sparse Plus. Funded by the Creative Europe programme, the project represents a very important economic resource to promote professional live entertainment in European rural areas, confirming the capabilities of AMAT Associazione Marchigiana Theatrical Activities – chaired by Piero Celani and directed by Gilberto Santini – and of Fondazione Toscana Spettacolo – chaired by Cristina Scaletti and directed by Patrizia Coletta – to carry out new projects from a perspective that is not limited to national and regional borders.
From May to October 2024 the project comes alive with Sparse Plus festival which awaits the public in the splendid villages of Marche and Tuscany with 23 contemporary theater and circus events.
According to statistics, 30% of the European population lives in rural areas that have fewer opportunities for cultural access and enjoyment, a lack that inevitably reverberates in the local social fabric in terms of quality, cultural welfare and quantity. The ‘rural touring’ system is based on the idea of offering rural and semi-rural communities the use of shows to allow communities to meet and socialize in spaces that are often not created to host live events and above all to come into contact with quality artistic experiences often only available in larger and more distant cities. A characteristic element of the project is the identification of “local promoters” to encourage the organization of cultural events in the reference community.
There “Marche” section of the festival starts on May 25th and 26th to Maltignano (AP) with Sentimental oceanographic workshop Of Samovara poetic show of spatulas, wheels and waves tout public, for 5 years, for 7 travellers/spectators at a time, proposed in ten performances in the Caravan Theater in Piazza Giuseppe Di Vittorio. Clowns, stand up comedy, juggling, burlesque, mime, fakirism, live music and singing expertly presented with a concentration of rhythm and energy bring the June 1st in San Ginesio (MC) in the Cloister of Sant’Agostino a Santa liberated cabaret, a “carousel of reckless artists” as the subtitle of the show states, brings to the stage the meeting and exchange between nine artists led by Elisa Spanò on stilts. Daniele Giangreco and Edward Nardin they bring the June 26th to the Church of the Annunziata of Cossignano (AP) the very famous book Oh! The book that makes sounds by the French author Hervé Tullet. The book is the real protagonist of the show Oh! The extraordinary stories of a great white book, becoming from object to subject of the scene: it can be read but it can also be inhabited, played, listened to, transformed, illuminated, thrown, broken. Here the show becomes interactive and the audience becomes a player, but without the use of technology, only thanks to imagination. The July 19th Sparse Plus festival stops at the Municipal Theater of fairy tales and poetry Montalto delle Marche (AP) with Right Of Rosario Lisma, the surreal, funny and painful story of diversity in the contemporary world and an invitation to overcome the certainties that protect us and the limits that we have given ourselves. “I wrote Right with the passionate intent of redeeming the invisible of our contemporary society – says Rosario Lisma – my hero is like a delicate and luminous flower in a comical landfill of unbridled individualism. Right it is a hymn to kindness and non-conformism. It is the bastion of the good man in a merciless world.” The Marche section of Sparse Plus festival moves towards the conclusion and leaves the baton to the Tuscan one with Little Red Riding Hood in the woodsan immersive show in a real forest for adults and children from 4 years of age Zaches Theatredirection and dramaturgy by Luana Gramegnalive music and soundscape of Cristina Petitti (viola), Enrica Zampetti (percussion), with Gianluca Gabriele, Amalia Ruocco/Francesca Valeri, Enrica Zampetti. The show is on stage July 27 to Reggello (FI – Parco delle Lastre), the July 28 to San Lorenzo in Campo (PU – location to be defined) and the 21 September to Bagnone (MS – location to be defined). Around the audience immersed in the woods, the characters of the fairy tale move, appear and disappear Little Red Riding Hood, bringing to life the famous story of the little girl and the wolf. The notes of the viola are intertwined with the narration of a bizarre storyteller who guides the spectators along the unfolding of the story. In a combination of various artistic languages, narration, dance, puppet theater and live music come together, giving life to a delicate balance that has the gift of immersing large and small spectators in the famous story. Sparse Plus festival _ Tuscany continues September 28th in the historic center of Bibbiena (AR) and the October 27 in the Certosa di Pontignano of Castelnuovo Berardenga (Yes with TO[1]BIT, itinerant dance work for single spectators signed by Lara Guidetti For Sanpapie. The work comes from 1-Bit Symphony by the New York artist Tristan Perich, a manifesto of post-modern electronics designed for a very particular use, being contained in a circuit housed in the case of a CD that plays the electronic symphony in five movements. A powerful electronic work, to be listened to on headphones, individually. The relationship between single and collective position, in an urban and disorderly context, is the cornerstone of choreographic research. The dancers move according to the space and the audience, who find themselves, unconsciously, part of the choreographic design.
L’October 11th the festival stops at the Teatro dei Coraggiosi in Pomarance for In the eye of the Labyrinth: apologia by Enzo Tortorawritten and directed by Chicco Dossi And Simone Tudda For Cooperative Theatre. A monologue signed by an emerging author, entrusted to a young talent, tells a ‘case’ of bad justice that the new generations are unaware of. A well-known television presenter is accused of Camorra association and drug dealing only to appear totally innocent after years in prison and courts.
Alongside AMAT, the lead body, and Fondazione Toscana Spettacolo, the other European promoters of Sparse plus (www.sparse.eu) are Eesti Tantsuagentuur (Estonia), Fish Eye (Lithuania), Shoshin Theater (Romania), Riksteatern Varmland (Sweden), and others added for the new edition of the project such as Pro Progressione and SINUM (Hungary), Nova-Sit (Czech Republic), Teatro 4Garoupas (Germany), Art Fraction (Poland).
Information on Sparse Plus festival: www.amatmarche.net, www.toscanspettacolo.it
