Romaeuropa Festival

The Romaeuropa Festival, active throughout the Rome area where it brings the best performance realities from all over the world, has been in full swing for a few weeks now, each year enriched with new features, in the programmes in the venues involved, in the network that grows every year.

On 19 September, a press conference opened the activities at the Mattatoio di Roma, an industrial archaeology site that for several years has been undergoing regeneration as a cultural venue, including, among others, one of the two sites of the MACRO Museum in Rome, now in the Palaexpo Foundation’s roster of venues, several sites of the Roma Tre University, and a few steps away a branch of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, as well as being the historic site of the Scuola Popolare di Testaccio founded by Giovanna Marini.

‘The Pelanda del Mattatoio, thanks to the collaboration with Azienda Speciale Palaexpo,’ announces the press release, ’will be, also this year, the hub of the Romaeuropa Festival 2024 activities, as well as the space dedicated to the support of emerging creativity. Here the festival will host its most innovative proposal and the sections that run through its entire programme’.

The activities started on 21 and 22 September with the focus dedicated to the company BERLIN with which Romaeuropa starts its activities at the Mattatoio. Currently leading NTGent after Milo Rau, the Flemish group led by Yves Degryse presents two different performances suspended between documentary, cinema, installation and performance: The making of berlin and Zvizdal. This is followed by a packed agenda of events, as every year grouped into reviews that help guide the direction of interests, while always maintaining a multidisciplinary focus.

Graphic Design is the focus of the free Graphic Design Day on 29 September. Design Talks coordinated by David Aprea and curated by Stefano Cipolla (art director of the Espresso together with MISTAKER (creative studio that signed the REF campaign) in a network with VARSI, SHE.LAB, Betterpress.Lab and the IED, ISIA, NABA and RUFA academies. Finally, Fischio will be in charge of the temporary music bar of the festival, with its own musical proposal that will animate all the evenings of the festival at the Mattatoio.

From 17 to 20 October, Romaeuropa Festival returns to the Mattatoio with Dancing Days, the review curated by Francesca Manica dedicated to new Italian and European choreographic languages that selects each year some of the most interesting proposals of the contemporary scene. A programme dedicated to the identities of a new generation of choreographers and dancers, built as a network thanks to the collaboration with the European network Aerowaves and with DNAppunti Coreografici, the project supporting under-35 choreographers promoted and supported by the network of the same name.

The Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica Silvio d’Amico is once again proposing together with the Romaeuropa Festival the Silvio d’Amico Award for Directing, aimed at selecting a project by the students of its two directing courses and featuring this year director Marco Corsucci with his Mine-Haha.

This year sees the beginning of a collaboration with the cultural association Appercezioni, which presents SPORES. Trasformazioni artistiche tra poesia, scienza e nuove tecnologie, project winner of the Creative Europe 2022 call for proposals. A touring show composed of a collective of high-profile artists such as Federica Altieri, Flavia Mastrella, Antonio Rezza, Maria Letizia Gorga, Eugenio Barba, Julia Varley, Valerio Magrelli, Ashai Lombardo Arop, the Acre group, Giovanna Zanchetta, Valerio Peroni, and Alice Occhiali.

In its second year, Ghost Track, a format coordinated by Maura Teofili, hosted by Gioia Salvatori with musical interventions by Simone Alessandrini, will feature Caterina Guzzanti, Micol & Mirco, Claudia Marsicano, Veronica Lucchesi from La Rappresentante di Lista, Enrico Buonanno, Carlo de Ruggieri, Carlo Morici, Riccardo Goretti and many others.

It is once again Anni Luce, the section curated by Maura Teofili (2-6 November), that bets on the under-30 generation of Italian theatre. An immersion in digital cultures is proposed by the section Digitalive (11-13 ottobre), curated by Federica Patti, which crosses musical, choreographic and virtual paths, a window on a constantly evolving world animated by technological and artistic innovation.

From 8 to 17 November, the Mattatoio will be transformed into a space for children with the Kids & Family festival, a true festival within the festival curated by Stefania Lo Giudice, which renews its proposal of music, theatre and new circus dedicated to childhood that will debut at the Teatro Vittoria and move to the Mattatoio in November.