“Rites are symbolic actions. They pass on and represent those values and set of rules that support a community. Rites create a community of resonance capable of harmony, a common rhythm. Rites are processes of incarnation, bodily set-ups. The orders and values in force in a community are physically experienced and consolidated. They are inscribed in the body, incorporated, that is internalized through the body. Thus rituals create an embodied knowledge and memory, an embodied identity, an embodied bond.”
Byung-Chul Han, The Disappearance of Rites
The 35th edition of FDE – the Contemporary Dance Festival in Bergamo
Designing the 35th edition of FDE, which is going to take place in a special year for our city, symbolically united with Brescia for an unique great Italian Capital of Culture, we felt it was vital to reflect on the meaning of the word sharing, and on how this word is inevitably linked to rites in
multiple forms.
Dance is perhaps the art that more than any other carries within itself and in its origins a powerful and archaic ritual nature, but… what are the rites of our contemporaneity? How does dance meet them, cross, incorporate and transmit them nowadays? What shared landscapes are being created
in the relationship between artists and the public and among the spectators who take part in? How does the sharing of processes, relationships and individuality turn into a ritual?
We have tried to give an answer to all these questions through the shows, the special projects and the collateral initiatives that make up the FDE program, where there is no shortage of world premieres, national premieres and co-productions of male and female artists from Italy, Israel, France and Czech Republic. Proposals characterized by the constant search for an innovative choreographic language, open to experimentation with other disciplines and meeting with other artists for the exchange and transmission of practices. Shows, meetings, workshops designed for an audience that is becoming more and more interested and interesting, in a city ready to welcome new encounters, new rites and new moments for sharing.
Flavia Vecchiarelli – Artistic Direction
FDE Contemporary Dance Festival in Bergamo
FDE – Festival Danza Estate has been for more than thirty years one of the main live show events and the only festival dedicated to contemporary dance in Bergamo. Many venues in the city and surroundings for meeting internationally famous artists and Italian talent. An opportunity to live the energy of dance invading the city and province.
Every year Festival Danza Estate provides plenty of quality occasions to see and experience choreutic art at all levels.
The audiences are led on the discovery of contemporary dance through numerous fringe events: meetings, performances, film projections, training courses for dancers and aficionados.
Thanks to the collaboration with precious local cultural partners, each edition takes place in prestigious city settings such as the fantastic Teatro Sociale, the cloister of the Carmine Monastery and the former Daste thermoelectric power plant. The network reaches out to squares, theatres and public spaces throughout the province, thanks to the engagement and support of some towns on the outskirts of the city.
Festival Danza Estate contributes to cultural growth in the territory, bringing to completion the well-stocked supply of events, museums and activities already available in Bergamo, making the city more attractive to Italian and foreign tourists.
FDE Festival Danza Estate is a project curated by 23/C ART
Via Don Luigi Palazzolo, 23/C, Bergamo (Italia)
info@festivaldanzaestate.it
With the support of MiC Italian Ministry of Culture, Lombardia Region, Municipality of Bergamo
To submit artistic proposals please write to proposte@festivaldanzaestate.
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