MITTELFEST 2023: INEVITABILE 18/21 May – 21/30 July

Mittelfest, now in its XXXII edition, explores the theme of the INEVITABLE and possible new paths for what seems already mapped out.

Mittelfest 21/30 July: presents 29 artistic projects from 12 countries, including 14 world or Italian premieres and 7 productions/coproductions; mixing languages and epochs, and putting destiny and the unexpected into unexpected dialogues, to provide original ideas to a future yet to be written.

Mittelyoung 18/21 May: a unique event in Europe, staging 9 selected performances of prose, dance, music and circus from under-30 Mitteleuropa, thus giving substantial support to young people.

Among the protagonists of Mittelfest: (in calendar order) Vinicio Marchioni, Nicola Piovani, Lucia Vasini, Lorenzo Lavia, Paolo Triestino, Haris Pašović, Mirijana Karanović, Strijbos & Van Rijswijk, Effetto Larsen, Alexander Gadjiev, Federica Fracassi, Erri De Luca, Gardi Hutter and many others.

If there is one thing we have learnt in these last few years, it is that not everything is under our control. However, if some facts belong to the category of the inevitable, and must be welcomed and deciphered for what they want to bring us, it is up to us to take a different path, to evade what seems already mapped out.

From these remarks, amidst coincidences, needs and deviations from fate, originates the XXXII edition of Mittelfest – a multidisciplinary festival of theatre, music, dance and circus for the countries of Central-Europe and the Balkans, based in Cividale del Friuli, that this year will address the theme: INEVITABILE (INEVITABLE).

This is how Mittelfest director Giacomo Pedini explains the theme that inspired him for the programme: «Having reached, as Italo Calvino noted in his challenge to the labyrinth, “the phase of total industrialization and automation”, are we perhaps forced to act like automatons, to submit to the implacable mechanisms of an algorithm, to take inevitable steps in a world where “machines are ahead of men and things command consciences”? What is the margin still given to the decisive choice, to the one capable of changing the course of a mechanism that seems immutable? When looking at what will happen, is it possible to escape the temptation to think that the facts have already been decided, that there can be no alternatives? Does fate govern events or is it a game of interlocking external necessity and individual will? Every performance of Mittelfest 2023, in very different ways, wanders around these questions ».

The two international festivals will be staged respectively from 18 to 21 May, Mittelyoung, and from 21 to 30 July, Mittelfest, while throughout the year Mittelfest continues under the name of Mittelland, with events that give continuity to the festival and identify it as a bridge between European collaborations and local realities.

In numbers

In detail, this year Mittelfest has 28 artistic projects – 16 music, 8 theatre, 3 dance and 1 circus, to which are added the 3 shows selected from Mittelyoung and the show chosen by CS Under 30, the young section of the Carinthischer Sommer Music Festival – for 14 world and Italian premieres, 7 productions or coproductions, all involving 12 different countries.

Mittelyoung hosts the 9 winning projects from the call for entries closed last February with 169 applications, 85 of which from foreign countries: 2 theatre, 3 music, 2 dance and 2 circus, representing 6 different countries.

MITTELFEST 21/30 July.

Programme

two concerts frame the festival, opening and closing: the opening concert Janoska Goes Symphonic (21 July, world premiere, music), with the exceptional encounter between the Austro-Slovak Janoska Ensemble and the symphonic breath of FVG Orchestra, and the closing concert that definitely addresses a young audience with Fast Animals and Slow Kids, on stage exceptionally with Orchestra Arcangelo Corelli (30 July, music).

More than ever, Mittelfest 2023 engages in a dialogue with the city and offers three itinerant performances, that make the audience part of the artistic creation.

It begins with Deriva Urbana (Urban drift. A part not apart from a place) (22 and 23 July, Italian premiere, theatre), an international show by the Austro-Catalan collective Eléctrico 28, coproduced by Mittelfest and Dramma italiano di Fiume – HNK Ivan Zajc Rijeka, which leads us walking through Cividale to search for new relationships between people, things and places, between avoidable and inevitable elements, beyond solitude in the crowd. Walk with me by Strijbos & Van Rijswijk (28-30 July, Italian premiere, theatre) instead takes one spectator at a time around the city, guided by a software through headphones and smartphone, with the occasional encounter with an opera singer and with new sound stimuli. A work carried out with the support of Performing Arts Fund NL. The third is Effetto Larsen‘s show La fiera degli altri (The Fair of Others) (28-30 July, theatre), which brings together 35 spectators at a time and invites them to a playful experience, with small challenges in which they confront their own prejudices and their relationships with strangers, to identify the boundaries that separate us from others.

Then there is a wide line of ‘innovative or inevitable’ shows, in which emblematic stories and non-negotiable destinies come together.

To this group belongs the tribute to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Italo Calvino, whose Il visconte dimezzato (The Cloven Viscount) will be staged (22 July, world premiere, theatre), with Vinicio Marchioni and the live music by some of the musicians of Radio Zastava, in a collaboration between Mittelfest and Fondazione Teatro della Toscana.

A story that goes against a destiny that seemed written is certainly that of Marlene Dietrich, who decided to fight Nazism alongside the Americans. In an eagerly awaited performance, written and directed by Haris Pašović, former director of Mittelfest and one of the most respected directors in South-East Europe, Marlene (27 July, world premiere, theatre) will have the face of Serbian star Mirjana Karanović, in a coproduction between Mittelfest, the National Theatre of Sarajevo and the East-West Centre.

Also belonging to this group is the show dedicated to the Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla, entitled Tesla, by Ksenija Martinović and Federico Bellini (30 July, world premiere, theatre), which retraces the life and stages of the scientist, in particular his most ambitious project: the Wardenclyffe tower, which could have been an epoch-making turning point for humanity, with the production of free electricity for everyone.

Another way to go beyond the inevitable is to draw a creative counterpoint to the rule.

And this is the inspiration behind Tre fenomeni. Piovani – Vivaldi i concerti della natura (Three Phenomena. Piovani – Vivaldi concerts of nature) (23 July, music), a refined weave of musical references, where three of Vivaldi celebrated concertos are brought together and reinterpreted with new compositions inspired by them, written by Nicola Piovani.

Virtuosity and fun come together and renew expectations also in the balcony opera Questo è un nodo avviluppato (This is a tangled situation) (26 July, Italian premiere, music), curated by Piccolo Opera Festival di Gorizia that stages duets, trios and ensemble pieces in the evocative Monastery of Santa Maria in Valle, from fatal pages by Mozart and Rossini.

There will be a change of pace but not daring with Besh o drom (26 July, music), a world music performance by the Hungarian band – Hungary is the country of Mittelfest 2023 special focus – which for two decades has fascinated audiences around the world with its challenge to the categorisation of genres.

Also from Hungary is Mechanics of Distance (22 July, Italian premiere, dance), in which Máté Mészáros‘ choreography investigates and rewrites the relationship between bodies and their possible variations in contact with the environment, through the study of gesture and everyday life and its rejects.

Undoubtedly innovative is also Toonzetters by Primo Ish-Hurwitz (28 July, Italian premiere, music), a project that comes from the Netherlands, with the support of Performing Arts Fund NL, and brings together the works of twenty young Dutch composers, a kaleidoscope of musical styles and characters, from neo-romantic melodies to jazz.

Equally creative is Solo bianco e nero (Only black and white), an Italian-Russian-Lithuanian performance (30 July, world premiere, music), in which Lukas Geniušas, Corrado Rojac and Anna Geniushene reinterpret pieces by Schurbert, Solbiati (two world premieres) and Prokofiev, starting from the possibilities of the tones and half tones of piano and accordion.

Finally, a fascinating project is Quadri di un’esposizione (Pictures at an exhibition) (28 July, music), combining the piano of Alexander Gadjiev with poetic texts read by Federica Fracassi, to retrace the promenade of Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, who, in 1874, tried to translate for piano an entire exhibition by his friend Hartmann.

Moving on to a vein of poetic and literary performances, Clessidra (Hourglass) is once again a linguistic reinvention, this time from words to music, that Enrico Malatesta with his sound performance makes of the short stories by poet and writer Danilo Kiš, one of the most significant writers of the former Yugoslavia (24 July, world premiere, music).

Le rose di Sarajevo (The Roses of Sarajevo) by Erri de Luca and Cosimo Damiano Damato, with Minuscola Orchestra Balcanica di Giovanni Seneca, pays homage to the poet Izet Sarajlić (29 July, music), who wrote about the city of Sarajevo and witnessed the Bosnian tragedy. So much so that at the time of the siege citizens went to his poetry evenings in the darkness of a city without electricity.

In Minotauri (Minotaurs) (27 July, music), violinist and composer Anaïs Drago embarks on a musical and literary journey through our inner solitudes.

Paolo Triestino brings to the stage the beautiful novel Les Gratitudes (Gratitude) by Delphine de Vigan (25 July, world premiere, theatre), adapting and directing it and appearing among the performers with Lucia Vasini and Lorenzo Lavia. It tells the story of Michka, an elderly Polish proofreader, who faces the inexorable loss of speech while trying to find the person who had saved her as a child.

Mittelfest pays a lot of attention to the audience of tomorrow also by hosting an extensive family project in its programming to include and educate the youngest.

Here we have the show Fili di inchiostro e nuvole (Threads of ink and clouds) by Circo all’InCirca (22 July, world premiere, circus), a combination of two unique acts, In Ottavo (Octavo) and Overcoats.

A project for audiences of all ages is La sarta (The tailor) with the great Swiss clowness Gardi Hutter, directed by Michael Vogel of Familie Flöz (23 July, theatre, with the support of Pro Helvetia), who, amid rag dolls and dancing mannequins, sews together the plot of the show, set in a tailor’s shop, without sparing snips and malice.

In Drunken Master (29 July, Italian premiere, dance), we find the acrobat Noah Chorny who has drunk more schnapps than he should and, tipsy and doddery, decides to climb on a lantern to light it with a small match, while the six-meter-high pole bends over the heads of the audience.

Finally, in Lowtech Magic‘s Chüssi (30 July, Italian premiere, music, with the support of Pro Helvetia) a dancer and a musician tell without words the act of inevitably growing up.

From acrobatics to epic, a show for all audiences is The game of Nibelungen, an epic bloody object theatre, in gestural German by Laura Gambarini (29 July, Italian premiere, theatre, with the support of Pro Helvetia), who gives an exhilarating performance on the great classic of the German Middle Ages in a German that is irresistible and understandable to all.

The same goes for the double show – still within the special focus on Hungary – Proper mess + Pyrodise by Duo Two Many plus Firebirds and Flame flowers (24 July, Italian premiere, dance), that explore the wonders and dangers of circus art and vertical dance, in a game between risk and its odds.

MITTELYOUNG 18 – 21 May

Mitteyoung, Mitteleuropa under-30 festival, is one of the most original novelties that Mittelfest brings to the vast panorama of Italian and European festivals: in its third edition it has become an eagerly awaited and mature event to see a generation on stage and, at the same time, to give productive support to young people.

Like the last edition, it makes use of important alliances: the one with Carinthischer Sommer Music Festival, and in particular with the under-30 project, CS under 30, and the renewed collaboration with SNG Nova Gorica which brings the first dayof Mittelyoung, 18 May, to Nova Gorica in the small hall of SNG, with two circus shows.

The 9 projects have been selected following a call for entries published all over the countries of Mitteleuropa and the Balkans, which resulted in 169 applications,submitted to a jury of curatores under 30. At the end of Mittelyoung, 3 projects will be selected by the same commission to be repeated in Mittelfest programme.

Six countries are represented by the selected projects (Italy, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Croatia and the Czech Republic), which are almost all world premieres.

Programme:

On 18 May it opens in Nova Gorica with the first study of Quieto Parado (circus), an Italian show created by Pietro Barilli, in which a tragicomic character is struggling with a spasmodic search for balance that almost drives him to madness. Then CM_30 is a German show by Kolia Huneck (circus), where an experienced juggling artist creates an immersive environment somewhere between contemporary circus and art installation.

On 19 May Mittelyoung returns to Cividale del Friuli, on the stage of the church of Santa Maria dei Battuti, with the Austrian show I sogni sono gli specchi notturni dell’anima (Dreams are the night mirrors of the soul) (music) by Trio-Bio, an interdisciplinary project exploring the possible narratives of dreams, and thus of desires, which will be divided over time into several chapters.

On the same day, the music of What if…? stages Lavish Trio, coming from the Netherlands with a piano, a violin and a cello.

20 May will open with an additional event, the outcome of a dramaturgy workshop, thanks to the collaboration of several theatre productions, including Mittelfest. A est del palcoscenico (The East side of the stage), funded by the Ministry of Culture under the “BOARDING PASS PLUS” open call, with the workshop held by Bosnian author Tanja Sljivar.  Then, again from the Netherlands comes the performance Something else by Collectief MAMM (dance), in which five performers explore the social pressure to achieve success.

The day closes with the show Piango in lingua originale (I cry in the original language) by Italian-Croatian actress Carla Vukmirović (theatre), daughter of the exodus and dissolution of former Yugoslavia, which remains alive for her in her parents’ stories and is transferred in poems and in the attempt to find an order between the Italian and Croatian languages.

On 21 May, the closing day, the Italian dancers of Esenco Dance Movement present Lay Bare (dance), the winning performance of the artist residency project Area Mediterranea. The bodies on stage become prisons from which soul essence is released.

On the same day stages The Honey Maker, a show by the Czech group FRAS (theatre), which tells the story of Joshi, an old Nepalese man who never had to leave the village, until his sister falls ill.

The unprecedented rhythm of Hrduja by Italian Massimo Silverio (music) will finish with a flourish. The title takes up a Friulian word of Lombard origin, which indicates the scab that is created when a wound heals. On the wave of this suggestion, the artist composed his debut album, combining and rhyming Friulian and English.

Alongside these two national festivals, Mittelfest programme spreads throughout the year with Mittelland, which will be announced as the year progresses.

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MITTELFEST PRESS OFFICE::

National/International
Giulia Calligaro giulia.calligaro4@gmail.com 0039.349.6095623

Macroregional
Francesca Gatti: f.gatti@reportagepr.com, 0039.347.9854644

General
ufficiostampa@mittelfest.org