The Municipality of Naples, in collaboration with the Metropolitan City, is promoting the first edition of the Naples Fringe Fest as the first event in the celebrations dedicated to the 2500th anniversary.
And it has called upon young artists and professionals to enrich the official programming with a widespread space, dedicated to performative creativity in all its forms.
The aim is to create a calendar of events that enhances the thousand-year history of the city and strengthens its identity as the cultural capital of the Mediterranean. In order to collect the most valid and interesting proposals, the first public call dedicated to this historic anniversary has been published, with the aim of involving cultural operators, citizens and tourists of Naples.
Original projects can be submitted by February 28, 2025. The selected proposals will give life to a free, inclusive and innovative program that will celebrate Naples as a crossroads of cultures, languages, talents. Individual artists, collectives and companies can participate in the realization of the projects with unpublished or reinterpreted/integrated/adapted shows for the celebrations of the 2500 years since the foundation of Neapolis.
Artists are also admitted for the creation of shows or performances, even itinerant, suitable for open spaces, in order to enhance street art. The proposals must fall into at least one of the following sections: international, national dramaturgy and special projects; theater; music; street performance; dance and body language; literature; shows for children; multimedia and visual art (first works and unpublished projects).
Furthermore, they must be classified in one of the following categories: Suite (shows or performances, suitable for closed spaces); Village Off (shows or performances, including itinerant, suitable for open spaces); Extra Fringe (“special” projects). Project proposals falling into the Suite and Village Off categories cannot exceed a maximum cost of 10 thousand euros including VAT.
This amount may be re-determined during the identification of the appropriate location on the indication of the artistic direction. For the Extra Fringe typology, the appropriateness of the amount will be evaluated directly by the artistic direction during the application phase. Naples: online call for tenders Municipality for celebrations of 2500 years of the city.
The events, which will take place between summer and December 2025, will involve the territory through theater, dance, music, circus art, literature, visual arts and much more. The festival will transform Naples into a real widespread stage, animating streets, parks, theaters and unconventional spaces.
“The Napoli Fringe Fest will be an innovative opportunity for our territory in the wake of other very successful and appreciated international experiences: the aim is to fully involve independent cultural operators who will thus have, during the year of the city's birthday celebrations, an unprecedented showcase for their artistic expressions.
The watchword of the celebrations for the 2500 years of Naples must be inclusion, the Fringe Fest goes in this direction", said the mayor of Naples Gaetano Manfredi. "Cultural tourism is one of the pillars of Naples' strategy to attract tourists and a festival that involves young people making them protagonists of debuts and participants in artistic laboratories and workshops, will certainly represent a powerful attractor for many creative talents from all over the world.
Focusing on new languages and innovation is an extraordinary opportunity to celebrate the 2500 years of a city with a strong artistic tradition like Naples but also to project it into the future by connecting it with other international youth realities and festivals”, declared the Councilor for Tourism Teresa Armato.
“We have chosen as the first action of this year the freedom of the Fringe formula: original ideas, public or unconventional places, young creatives or established professionals who will embrace the idea of a Neapolitan residence for a creation dedicated to the 2500 years.
We will take care of supporting the debut productions by making the selected locations a 'performance space' suitable for involving every type of audience: a democratic approach to art, which gives everyone the same opportunities. The artists will be the best testimonials of this inclusive spirit”, added Laura Valente, artistic director of Napoli 2500.
