June at the 35th Florence Dance Festival

The Main Cloister of Santa Maria Novella (Chiostro Maggiore) will be home to the Florence Dance Festival, June 20 to July 23, welcoming both renowned and emerging artists from Italy and overseas.

Directors of the festival, Marga Nativo and Keith Ferrone, are confident that they have curated the perfect programme, marking a return to ”excellence, artistically and with regards to offering the best way for the audience to attend.” Celebrating the festival’s 35th anniversary, Florence Dance has embraced the theme ”I Love Dance,” emphasising the core of the event: dance itself. Keith shares that 2024 is the year for Florence Dance Festival to: ”just talk about our love for dance.” 

The main venue will feature a staggered, 360° view of the stage, which has been greatly appreciated by previous audiences. The official opening of the event will take place on June 20 and 21 with a performance from the Peeping Tom company. Keith states that he is most looking forward to this performance as Peeping Tom is ”really top-notch and on the cusp of contemporary development.”  The company has never performed with an open-door format, making this a highly anticipated opening for the summer.

From Brussels, Belgium comes multi-award winning Diptych – The Missing Door & The Lost Room, with Gabriela Carrizo and Franck Chartiera, a very popular production which has been hosted by some of the most famous theatres around the world.

Life & Dance, created by the teachers and students at Florence Dance Center, will be performed on June 23, under artistic direction of Marga Nativo. On June 26, Oona Doherty, winner of Leone d’argento della Biennale di Venezia 2022, and her Northern Irish company Od Works, will present their masterpiece Navy Blue, inspired by the book Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan, exploring human significance in the vastness of the universe. Elon University USA, Accademia Europea Firenze and Taipei Senior Zhong Zheng Senior High School have collaborated on the June 27 choreographies of Florence Dance Platform with ‘Palcoscenico per le nuove generazione d’artisti (A Stage for a New Generation of Dancers).

Whilst Florence Dance Festival welcomes a number of outstanding Italian companies, Ferrone and Nativo also greatly value their international blend of companies and performers, providing the opportunity to promote a contemporary sense of the artistic world in the city of Florence. Whether it be Florentines or outsiders attending the festival, classic and modern approaches unite to reflect the Florentine artistic landscape of our time. The directors guarantee that those attending can expect the performances will ”without a doubt touch their lives.”

Performances in Other Locations

June 16, 6:30 pm: Summer Dance at Parco Mediceo (Medici Park) at Pratolino (last stop of bus 25 from Piazza Libertà).  Afterwards, guests can order aperitivo (drink and finger food) or a first course of tortelli mugellani (squares of pasta filled with potato, cheese, garlic and parsley and topped either with a meat sauce or butter and sage) at the Locanda del Parco.

June 29 and 30: Mugello Dance Experience at Palazzuolo sul Senio

Music

June 30: Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina, conducted by Giuseppe Lanzetta, will perform a tribute to Oscar-winning Ennio Morricone, an Italian composer specialized in film scores. at Chiostro Maggiore di Santa Maria Novella.  (Lucy Turner)