The first edition of the Segesta Teatro Festival is about to cross the finish line,
the performing arts review with the artistic direction of Claudio Collovà, scheduled until 4 September at the Segesta Archaeological Park directed by Luigi Biondo, between the Ancient Theater, the Temple of Aphrodite Urania and the neighboring municipalities: Calatafimi Segesta, Contessa Entellina, Custonaci , Poggioreale and Salemi.
The appointments scheduled from 27 August to 1 September, including a new national premiere, are inscribed in some of the peculiarities of this first edition of the festival: the spread of programming in the territories adjacent to the Archaeological Park, the dialogue with Ierofanie Festival of Naxos , with a view to a collaboration between archaeological parks in Sicily and between festivals and cultural institutions; and the reflection on the concept of the Sacred that has gone through both festivals.
The program of 27 August is very dense. It starts early in the morning at the Ex Convent of San Francesco in Calatafimi Segesta with We dance the voice until death, a free seminar held by Raffaele Schiavo, singer, musician, composer, music therapist, researcher, author and theatrical performer, as well as an expert in ancient voice , of Polyphony and Song of Harmonics. The seminar, based on the VoxEchology method, looks at the horizon of “a relational mind” that “guided by musical principles would open to an idea of society as a polyphonic, happy and highly efficient vital system”. In the same place, on the afternoon of August 27 (and then also in the morning and afternoon of the following day), Schiavo will hold the workshop / experiential laboratory entitled Sacred and profane song in medieval Christianity which will arrive at a final performance at sunset on 28 August. The program of the workshop will deal with Gregorian chants, laudi and discanti, hymns and dances, antiphonae and conductus, improvisations in style, taken from important repertoires of sacred and profane medieval music, revisited through timbral explorations and theatrical elements body-voice, singing technique of the harmonics and bizarre and effective imitation of wind and percussion instruments. Raffaele Schiavo’s project, together with Giorgia Panasci’s concert, closes the shared programming cycle with the Naxos Ierofanie Festival. The young Sicilian harpist will perform at 10 pm on 27 August at the Temple of Aphrodite Urania, together with the percussionist Giulia Perriera, in Manas, an experimental music project for harps and percussion that re-elaborates sacred and baroque music with instruments that recall ancient oriental spirituality : Manas is the supernatural and impersonal force, the union between the Human and the Divine, the living fire that gives the human mind self-awareness and self-perception.
Before the concert, however, the usual appointment at sunset at the Ancient Theater: on stage, as a national premiere, Il canto dei giganti. First movement: the changed son, a show between theater and music directed by Manuela Mandracchia and Fabio Cocifoglia, original Agricantus music. The show is a reinterpretation of the various texts in which Pirandello tackles the themes of his changed son in a close dialogue with the music and sounds of Agricantus, a pioneer band of contamination between world music with a Mediterranean imprint and electronic music. On stage Fabio Cocifoglia, Manuela Mandracchia, Mario Crispi (ethnic wind instruments, guitar, vocals), Chiara Minaldi (vocals, piano), Mario Rivera (acoustic bass, guitar, vocals).
Also at the Teatro Antico, on 29 and 30 August Vincent van Gogh will be staged. The infinite descent, in national premiere, theatrical performance written and directed by Paola Veneto, inspired by the biography of the Dutch painter written by Giordano Bruno Guerri.
Between memories, suggestions and original letters, the performance sees the characters of Van Gogh, Sartre and Artaud alternate on stage in a sort of dance between the “photography” of the life of the great genius and the reflection on the madness of the Artist. Art, color and passion for life – which are transfigured on the artist’s canvas to the point of killing him in the cage of solitude – are at the center of this piece, which breathes and pulsates at the unique and inimitable rhythm of one of the most narcotic and controversial of all time. On stage Giordano Bruno Guerri (Himself), Antonio Gargiulo (Vincent van Gogh), Marco Paparella (Theo van Gogh, Sartre, Gauguin, narrator), Edoardo Barbone (Antonin Artaud), Paola Tarantino (Elisabeth van Gogh, Sien, Adeline Ravoux), Riccardo Avati (Art history student).
Finally, before the great closure of September 4 with the work of Salvatore Sciarrino, the Segesta Teatro Festival on September 1 opens its doors to the Beauty Festival by hosting two of the greatest contemporary Italian philosophers, Umberto Galimberti, who will discuss Greek wisdom by analyzing the spirit of the Hellenic civilization between being and logos, at the Ancient Theater at 7 pm; and Massimo Cacciari, who will talk about Greek Myth and Tragedy at 9.15 pm at the Temple of Aphrodite Urania, a philosophical reflection on the tragedy that evokes myths and taboos of Greece expressed in epoch-making plays.
Tickets available, also with the possibility of subscriptions, at the Park box office or online on the CoopCulture website www.coopculture.it/it/eventi/evento/segesta-teatro-festival/ or up www.vivaticket.com/it/tour/teatro-di-segesta-festival-2022/778.
Segesta Teatro Festival: the latest appointments between music, theater, entertainment.