A project conceived by the Goethe-Institut of Naples and Marseille to bring together the artistic realities of Italy, France and Germany. The press conference in Naples, at the Nuovo Teatro Sanità.
It was presented at a press conference yesterday, Tuesday 16 January 2018 at the New Health Theater of Naples, Cities on the Edge, an international artistic cooperation project conceived by Goethe-Institut of Naples and Marseille that involves ten realities operating in the field of theater, dance and music and carrying out their activities in areas defined as marginal or inconvenient Italy, France and Germany.
This is a fascinating project of international and multicultural scope that tends to bring together local realities that are similar in terms of social context and artistic and cultural impetus, and that are geographically distant, that is Naples, Marseille and the area between Bochum and Herne, in the Ruhr region in Germany.
Among the ten realities of the project is the New Health Theater of Naples, La Friche la Belle de Mai, an urban space for social and artistic inclusion, born in 1992 from a former tobacco factory, where it is possible to exchange ideas and knowledge in any field, through any artistic expression and between all generations; is pottfiction, theater project for young people from the region of Dysentery, consisting of six permanent and independent theaters (Consol Theater Gelsenkirchen, Helios Theater Hamm, Kinder und Jugendtheater Dortmund, Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum, Theaterhagen, Theater-kohlenpott Herne).
Objective of Cities on the Edge is to create a European international network of artists, encouraging training and creative and multidisciplinary exchange through music, theater and dance workshops, but also conferences and seminars on the theme of cultural work.
Cities on the Edge is aimed at the trinational production of three shows that will be staged in the second part of the 2018 in Marseilles, in Herne (in the Ruhr) and in Naples.
The first stop of Cities on the Edge in Naples, at the Nuovo Teatro Sanità
The press conference took place at the end of two days of meetings between Italian partners (New Teatro Sanità, the Social Cooperative Dedalus with Officine Gomitoli and the Music Association Alessandro Scarlatti), French (Cultural and Social Center Friche la Belle de Mai and the Festival de Marseille) and Germans (pottfiction, circuit composed of five youth theaters placed in the Ruhr region), hosted by the New Sanità Theater of Mario Gelardi.
The one of Napoli it was the first step of this interesting cultural and theatrical project that will come in June of the 2018 in Marseille, where, within the famous Festival de Marseille, the debut of the show of the French partners will be held. There third stage di Cities on the Edge it will take place at Herne, in the second half of August, when the German partners will debut and the trinational production, curated by Mario Gelardi, who will stage a text by Philippe Löhle. The show will then debut in Naples during the autumn of 2018.
Cities on the Edge: the three shows on stage in Naples, Marseille and Herne
During the press conference, the partners discussed the issues that will be at the center of the three theatrical productions to be realized at the end of the project, namely those of the work and utopia. The three shows will be about 45 minutes each, and structured as "chapters".
Lo French production show which will debut in June 2018 as part of the Festival de Marseille will be on work theme and will resent the suggestions and experiences experienced by about 20 young people in the workshops of dance organized, in the La Friche la Belle de Mai circuit, by Ben Fury, choreographer who combines breakdance and contemporary dance, and in workshops on the use of video in the arts of the scene with the director Antje Ehmann and of music, with the German DJ of Turkish origin Ipek Ipekcioglu.
Lo German production show, of the area of Ruhr between Bochum and Herne, will be realized with the guide of the director Manuel Moser who will elaborate the text based on the inspirations and solicitations of the young artists who will imagine scenes, texts and pantomimes on the theme "Utopias - Dystopias". Supervision and dramaturgy are curated by Frank Hörner (Kohlenpott Theater, Herne). This group of artists includes both German and foreign students from different cultures. So many languages will be used, German, but also English, Kurdish, Turkish, Farsi and Arabic.
Lo show of Italian production will be born of the extraordinary collaboration between Philipp Löhle, German associate playwright of the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, and the New Health Theater. Philipp Löhle's new text will be written specifically for the Nuovo Teatro Sanità, and will be focused on the themes of work and utopia. Thanks to some visits to the city of Naples and to the interviews with young actors of this theater, the German playwright has captured the image of a city characterized by problems and complexities diametrically opposed to those of the German area.
Cities on the Edge, a new model of European cultural production
Cities on the Edge It represents a news in the world of theater production and artistic exchanges between different countries and aims to build a model that can also be exported to high European cities geographically distant but similar in social context, for the conditions of marginalization and hardship, and for the same momentum artistic and cultural.
As stated Joachim Umlauf, Director of the Goethe-Institut of Marseille and Lyon: «Cities on the Edge is an interesting project because it allows us to follow new paths in cultural promotion, in a broader European context. The attention to the needs of local partners, the creation of productions of high artistic level, social commitment, networking between institutions and European bodies, training and the creation of specific knowledge, are the main elements of this ambitious project ». With a view to a future increasingly Europeanized society, in which today's young people will find themselves acting and confronting each other.
Photo credits: Vincenzo Antonucci
