At the 2019 Napoli Teatro Festival Italia, works and events by emigrant artists living and working in Europe bring to the stage the themes of multiculturalism, multiple identities, and openness to the cultural flows of the contemporary world. From France, Syrian directors Waël Ali, Wael Kadour, and Mohamad Al Rashi, choreographer and dancer Nidal Abdo, set designer Bissane Al Charif, Moroccan dancers Yassine and Youness Aboulakoul, and Moroccan-born director Mohamed El Khatib, will be coming to Naples to present their new creations. From Lebanon, the NTFI will host choreographer Ali Charour. This focus, entirely dedicated to the Arab world, is part of the rich program of the twelfth edition of the Festival, directed by Ruggero Cappuccio, thanks also to participation in the Performances Beyond Two Shores project, supported by the European Commission under the Creative Europe program. in collaboration with La Francia in scena, the artistic season of the Institut Français Italia, organized by the French Embassy in Italy with the support of the Institut Français and the Nuovi Mecenati Foundation; and with the support of the Goethe-Institut of Naples and the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. The focus will be covered on Tuesday, June 18th at 9:00 pm, live from the Dopofestival in the Giardino Romantico of Palazzo Reale, by Radio Zazà – the culture, society, and entertainment program broadcast on Rai Radio 3 – with the program's curators Anna Antonelli and Lorenzo Pavolini and hosts Piero Sorrentino and Lea Nocera, for a public meeting with some of the protagonists of the twelfth edition of the Festival. The following will be guests of Zazà's appointment dedicated to new visions of the post-migration art scene, for the column A Window on the Mediterranean: Syrian writer and director Wael Ali, who will present the world premiere of Under a Low Sky (Sous un ciel bas, تحت سماء و١طئة) at the NTFI (a performance on stage at the Sala Assoli on June 21st and 22nd); Syrian-Palestinian set designer Bissane Al Charif, curator (together with Lebanese actress and director Chrystèle Khodr and Syrian director Waël Ali) of the interactive installation Dans un jardin je suis rentrée, on display at Palazzo Fondi until June 22nd; Mohamad Al Rashi, co-director with Wael Kadour (Syrian playwright and director now a refugee in France) and performer of Chronicles of a City Without a Name, which tells the true story of a woman who committed suicide in Damascus in 2011, highlighting the violence inherent in a political, economic, and religious system established and perpetuated for decades (national debut – on stage at Galleria Toledo, June 20 and 21). In addition to the protagonists of Mediterranean artistic creation, the Radio 3 Zaza meeting will host, for the Italian prose programme at the NTFI, Elio De Capitani and Ferdinando Bruni, directors of Angels in America (The Millennium and Perestroika Approaches) by Tony Kushner – an overwhelming marathon in two chapters (national debut – on stage on 20 and 21 June at the Teatro Politeama) – and Davide Iodice, creator, playwright and director of The Moon, creation from waste, scraps, the repressed of a community (national debut – on stage on 12, 13 and 14 July at Palazzo Fondi). Another great opportunity for international comparison at the NTFI is offered from 17 to 22 June by the Gathering program (an initiative created as part of the Performance beyond two shores project by Creative Europe), which proposes an exchange between Arab artists in Europe with the aim of giving visibility to four young contemporary performers and putting them in contact with relevant European artistic realities: the Syrians Anis Hamdoun and Wihad Suleiman who now live in Germany, the Egyptian Sara Shaarawi who lives in Glasgow and the writer and actress Dounia Mohammad born in Europe, in Brussels. The calendar of activities of the Gathering, curated in partnership with the Department of Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean of the University of Naples L'Orientale, includes two meetings open to the public: on June 18 (at 16.00:19 p.m.) at the Conference Hall of Palazzo Corigliano the meeting entitled Reflections on exile: the experience of Arab theater in Europe, with the participation of the artists involved, Lea Nocera, the event will be coordinated by Monica Ruocco; on June 19.00 (at XNUMX:XNUMX p.m.) in the Romantic Garden of Palazzo Reale the second meeting scheduled entitled Scenes con(temporanee): Arab theater in Europe, in addition to the artists present, Gennaro Gervasio intervenes, coordinated by Monica Ruocco. The Europa Creativa project Performance beyond two shores will continue in the future, in a subsequent phase, during the other partner Festivals: Les Rencontres à l'échelle festival – Marseille; Shubbak festival – London; Weimar art festival – Weimar; Palais des Beaux Arts Bozar – Brussels; Dancing on the Edge festival – Amsterdam.
SHOWS FROM THE ARAB WORLD AT NTFI
Dedicated to the new visions of the post-migration art scene, Chronicles of a City Without a Name by Wael Kadour and Mohamad Al Rashi, on stage on June 20 at 19 pm and June 21 at 21 pm at the Galleria Toledo. The work is based on a true story that took place in Damascus at the beginning of the revolution: the suicide of a young woman on a summer night in 2011. The director and playwright Wael Kadour — trained at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus, now a refugee in France —, evoking certain aspects of Syrian society before and after the revolution, highlights the violence intrinsic to the political, economic, religious system of his country capable of annihilating any hope of a dream and a future. The play does not document the incident, but asks a question: how could a Syrian woman not know what was happening in her country, when the revolutionary movement threatened to bring down the regime? The show is produced in collaboration with La Francia in scena, with the financial support of the Goethe-Institut of Naples and the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Berlin.
The absolute debut of Under a low sky تحت سماء و١طئة Under a low sky by Waël Ali, a Syrian writer and director born in 1979. Ali brings to the stage the character of Jamal, a forty-year-old Syrian documentary maker who has lived in France for several years, obsessed by the loss of his past: the places of his youth have disappeared, those who made up his world have moved elsewhere. He feels trapped by the idea that this prevents him from creating: "how can I look at the present if I no longer have a past?" He thus sets off on a journey that is an attempt to restore his history. Repeat on June 22 at 19 pm.
The show is part of the Performance beyond two shores project, supported by the European Commission under the Creative Europe Programme of which NTFI is a part and is programmed in collaboration with La Francia in scena. After its debut in Naples, the show is scheduled to tour the project's partner festivals: Les Rencontres à l'échelle festival – Marseille; Shubbak festival – London; Weimar art festival – Weimar; Palais des Beaux Arts Bozar – Brussels; Dancing on the Edge festival – Amsterdam. In the Exhibitions Section, the interactive installation Dans un jardin je suis rentrée, created by the set designer Bissane Al Charif (Palestine-Syria) together with the Lebanese actress and director Chrystèle Khodr and the Syrian director Waël Ali, will be on display until June 22 at Palazzo Fondi. The installation investigates the first sexual experiences and the discovery of intimacy experienced during times of war and peace, starting from the memories of adults who lived their adolescence in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. The public is invited to relive these stories through an interactive space in which sound is diffused in the air, in an immersive experience in the memories of individuals who remember their “lost paradise”.
The event is planned in collaboration with La Francia in scena. Still from France, the show Finir en beauté by Mohamed El Khatib, a French artist of Moroccan origins and creator of the Zirlib collective, a meeting and research place for performers, dancers, filmmakers, musicians with different backgrounds and horizons, arrives in Naples as a national premiere, after its revelation at the Avignon Festival 2015. His work, on stage on June 25th at 21 pm and June 26th at 19 pm in the Assoli Hall, takes inspiration from interviews, emails, text messages, administrative documents and other real sources, through which he (re)constructs on stage the story of a bereavement: the death of his mother. «During my research, originally titled Conversation — says Mohamed El Khatib — I had to investigate the transition from my mother tongue (Arabic) to the theatrical language, through interviews conducted with my mother. On February 20, 2012, his death shattered my intentions. Finir en beauté attempts to explore the modalities of dialogue starting from the notion of rubble: the rubble of a relationship, of a story, of a landscape, of everything that will remain of us." The show is programmed in collaboration with La Francia in scena. On the international dance scene, after the success of choreographer Ali Charour on June 14th on the stage of the Politeama theatre with his new work Night (Layl), the Syrian drama will be given voice in Et si demain by choreographer and dancer Nidal Abdo of the Atelier des artistes en exil. On June 17th at 21 pm at the Teatro Nuovo, Collectif Nafass presents the national premiere of Nidal Abdo's new creation, also on stage with dancers Samer Al Kurdi, Alaaeddin Baker, Maher Abdul Moaty. The work starts from some fundamental questions for those who come from a country at war: why me, why us, why Man? These questions prompted the Nafass company to create Et si demain, a contemporary dance performance that explores memories, hardships, pain, and emotions, expressed through the language of the body—which becomes the language of the soul—thanks to four Syrian-Palestinian dancers. The show is programmed in collaboration with La Francia in scena. From France, comes the show Hadra by Alexandre Roccoli with Hadra, on stage on 2 and 3 July at the Diocesan Museum at the Church of Santa Maria Donnaregina Vecchia. Initially conceived for the Moroccan dancer Yassine Aboulakoul and then supported by his brother Youness, the work focuses on the power of the desire to dance. For Hadra, created in 2017 at the Musée de l'Histoire de l'Immigration, Roccoli takes inspiration from the possession dances widespread both in the Morocco of the Gnawa brotherhoods but also in certain contemporary urban cultures, from hip hop to house music. Using the repetition of movements and sounds, the artist produces a circular, hypnotic and magnetic aesthetic in which the body is seized by the vertigo of dance. The show is programmed in collaboration with La Francia in scena.
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