Fabbrica Europa 2021 Performing Arts Festival

The opening event of Fabbrica Europa, DéRives, features crystal figures in the Arno River

Opening Sept. 2:  FABBRICA EUROPA avant-garde performing arts festival.  Various venues throughout Florence.  Tickets range from €5 to €12 and will be available via ticketone.it.  All events will follow health regulations including social distancing and capacity limits, so buy your tickets in advance to secure a spot.  At the entrance to each show it is necessary to display a “Green Pass” and photo ID.  For complete information on this year’s festival, visit http://www.fabbricaeuropa.net/.

Fabbrica Europa will offer live music, dance, and theater performances in the Performing Arts Research Center (PARC), as well as the Cascine Park, the garden of the Agricultural College, Teatro Puccini, Teatro Studio, Scandicci, Teatro Cantiere Florida, and the Arno River.

In a typical year, the festival takes place in the months of May and June, but due to the health emergency, the events were postponed until September 2021. Despite the obstacles of navigating hosting festivals during a pandemic, Fabbrica Europa reimagines a new way to experience live performances. Founded on the principles of questioning traditions and space itself, the festival uses performing arts to reflect on pertinent issues and the new identities artists and citizens alike are adapting during the pandemic.

The opening event, DéRives, will take place between Ponte alle Grazie, Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Santa Trinita on September 2 at 8 pm with free admission. A musician will play the flute from a boat while transparent glass figures will move down the Arno River at the mercy of the wind and the current to symbolize the movement of life in a new direction towards unknown horizons.

These crystal figures will subsequently be the subject of an installation place on the water of the Re Fountain in the Cascine Park from September 3 – 5.

Dancer Alessandra Sciarroni explores the pointe technique TURNING_Orlando’s Version, dancing on the tips of her toes in ballet shoes, connecting to the migration in nature that take place when fauna return to reproduce where they born before dying, bring the life cycle full circle.

South African singer-songwriter Anna Phoebe Lou will perform from her repertoire of indie and folk songs on September 3 in the garden of the Agricultural College of the University of Florence (Cascine Park, 9 pm).

September 4 brings a contemporary dance performance by Luisa Cortesi and Dimitri Greco Espinoza in a semi-circular area in the Cascine Park called by Otto Viottole (11 am).  (elizabeth berry & rosanna cirigliano)