Opera magazine
2016-08-05
Piume: a special Dante reading
In these dark times, culture and solidarity are the best antidote against extremism and hatred. The Giotto’s bell tower has been the set of an event involving culture, solidarity and the magic words of Dante.
In these dark times, culture and solidarity are the best antidote against extremism and hatred. The Giotto’s bell tower has been the set of an event involving culture, solidarity and the magic words of Dante.
Dante at Giotto’s bell tower: flying with Piume by Associazione Culter
The Associazione culturale Culter, based in Florence, is developing a series of events which is going to have its peak in 2021, with the celebrations of seven hundred years since the death of Dante.
Culter area is the Theatre Performance one: performances that are based on the inclusiveness principle. Inclusiveness towards socially, economically and culturally disadvantaged people.
The “Piume” - plumes - performance has bought that inclusiveness to the Campanile di Giotto, with a “mixed” crowd of performance, to celebrate the concept of flight, and freedom, in Dante’s work.
Like Dante ascends the Purgatory’s terraces toward the Garden of Eden and then to Heaven, the performance accompanies the audience through the levels of the Campanile.
First comes a flock of birds, a symbol of aspiration for the reaching of the otherworldly reality.
Then the Angels, and Ulysses, the character epitomizing the mankind desire of “virtue and knowledge” as in the famous terzina:
Considerate la vostra semenza:
fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.
Consider your origins:
you were not made to live as brutes,
but to follow virtue and knowledge.
“Piume” was part of the San Giovanni celebrations (Saint John the Baptist is the patron saint of Florence), the performance was held on June 24th and 25th (Saint John is observed on June 24th) at dawn and dusk.
Produced by Culter, “Piume” was staged with the support of the city of Florence, the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, the foundation Brunello Cucinelli, Mazzanti Piume and Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, and in partnership with Associazione Progetto Villa Lorenzi, Casa Circondariale di Prato, Casa Elios, Complesso Albergo Popolare "Fioretta Mazzei", Coop il Cenacolo - CO&SO Firenze.
