Teatro delle Albe for the Week of the Italian Language in the World
The 21st Week of the Italian Language in the World takes place in the sign of Dante and can be seen as the ideal conclusion to the program of celebration promoted worldwide by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI) on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the death of the Sommo Poeta.
The many events organized by the network of Embassies, Consulates and Italian Cultural Institutes – events that contribute, in the various disciplines, to revive and reinterpret Dante’s work in the contemporary world – include among the protagonists Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari of Teatro delle Albe from Ravenna, which for years has been carrying out an invaluable research and reflection ‘around Dante’.
After participating in the audiobook Dalla selva oscura al Paradiso and waiting to carry out the project Dante nei cinque continenti (Dante in the Five Continents), an important appointment of Teatro delle Albe in the Week of the Italian Language is in Senegal, with the project Dante in Wolof. The “Divine Comedy” in Pikine.
Following the Wolof translation of Canto I of the Divine Comedy, commissioned by the Italian Cultural Institute in Dakar and created by poet Pap Khouma, Alessandro Argnani of Teatro delle Albe will work with a group of actors from Pikine –neighborhood in Dakar banlieu– in collaboration with Senegalese actor Laity Fall and the Complexe Culturel Léopold Sédar Senghor in Pikine he directs, as well as the Ker Théâtre Mandiaye N’Diaye, of course, essential partner in Teatro delle Albe’s projects in Senegal.
From October 17 to 24, thirty young Senegalese actors are involved in an artistic path through the Cantiche of the Commedia and will try to ‘bring to life’ (expression dear to Martinelli) Dante’s poem in the suburb of Dakar with a performance that will be staged on October 23.
Another experience of ‘bringing to life’ the Divine Comedy is told with the screening of the film The Sky over Kibera by Marco Martinelli (October 15, online screening by the Italian Cultural Institute): the director worked with 150 children and teenagers in the immense slum of Nairobi reinventing Dante’s masterpiece in English and Swahili.
The film interweaves footage from the performance with sequences shot in the slum. Three teenagers from Nairobi give body and voice to Dante, Virgil and Beatrice: they are the guides who lead the viewer through the labyrinth of Kibera, where the “dark forest” in which Dante gets lost is much more than a simple metaphor (in Swahili, Kibera means “forest”).
Besides Dakar, The Sky over Kibera is scheduled in the program of the Week of the Italian Language in the World curated by other Italian Cultural Institutes and Embassies: Lyon (October 13), Beijing (October 19), Yaoundé (October 19-20), Los Angeles (October 21-23).
In some cases, Marco Martinelli introduces the film live from Italy, in others the screening is preceded by a video greeting for local spectators.
- The Sky over Kibera:
trailer
press kit (
835.52 KB) - more: Dante in Wolof. La “Divina Commedia” a Pikine
