This autumn, Rome will welcome more than 500 artists from 15 different countries. The capital will play host to numerous world-class cultural events, across 16 different locations. All of that is thanks to Romaeuropa Festival — and 33,000 people are expected to attend.
The 2021 edition of this prestigious artistic event will be launched in Rome’s musical center, the Auditorium Parco della Musica, with the acrobatic show of the French XY, a dancing troupe created together with the choreographer Rachid Ouramdane.
After the launch, the festival will present dance, theater and musical spectacles from high-profile artists from around the world. From Israel Galván with his surrealist flamenco alongside the musician Niño de Elche from Spain, to the British composer Max Richter and his reinterpretation of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons — from the Villa Medici Film Festival to Pieces of a Woman, the show signed by Kata Weber and Kornél Mundruczó. It’s a diverse lineup — including Oscar-winner Gus van Sant’s first theatrical direction Andy, inspired by the career of Andy Warhol.
Among Italian artists, Daria Deflorian and Antonio Tagliarini will open up a discussion with famous Italian film-maker Federico Fellini, while Elio Germano will engage with writer Luigi Pirandello — in virtual reality.
“Participating together in a live event of dance, music, theater, and digital arts leads to a common cultural elaboration that’s both stimulating and accomplished,” President of Romaeuropa Foundation, Guido Fabiani, has said. “But the audience that listens, follows, applauds, criticizes, breathes, is an irreplaceable factor in the growth of the show.”
A prestigious festival in a complex present
Romaeuropa festival is one of the most prestigious Italian festivals of contemporary art. Since its first edition in 1986, its fame has continuously grown, and it is now recognized as perhaps the most important cultural festival Italy. In 2006, for example, it was nominated by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top four European cultural festivals to visit.
Since then, Romaeuropa Festival has fostered international cooperation and promoted contemporary creativity and cultural diversity, by presenting some of the biggest global artists and performers together with emerging talents. The festival aims to present the latest developments in the international performing arts scene, focusing on all artistic languages that challenge the boundaries between genres and different forms of art.
The rich multidisciplinary program of various live events to be held in some of Rome’s most significant cultural institutions such as Teatro Argentina or Mattatoio is hailed by the festival’s artistic director Fabrizio Grifasi as a symbol of a new beginning for the artistic and cultural sector, amid the demands of the “new, complicated present.”
“This is our identity, this is our history, this is our gaze on a complex present; a new present in which we confront the baggage of our past, and a present which we are trying to discover through the eyes of the artists,” says Grifasi. “We can face this present thanks to the workers of the entertainment world — a world made particularly fragile during these two years, and a world we want to thank and support.”
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