Alley Oop Il Sole 24 Ore - A Coffea with Valeria Orani

Debora Mariotti in conversation with Valeria Orani

RadioX - In New York Live The Soul Of Contemporary Sardinia: Interview To Valeria Orani

by Cristina Marras

(Translation)

"Crossing the ocean, going so far, I suddenly felt completely Sardinian. As a first wish, I would have liked to be a link between travelers and my land. This is also because I saw ways of promoting Italy by other regions such as Puglia, Tuscany and Lazio, which were trying to talk about the territory and traditions in a more contemporary way. "

Is the reinterpretation of tradition today a cultural identity? How to convey the charm of a millenary culture outside the place of origin? How can we, starting from the cultural, historical and archaeological heritage of Sardinia, create a value that allows access to a competitive and contemporary market? These are some of the questions that the producer, curator and manager of culture and arts Valeria Orani, Sardinian but New Yorker by adoption, tried to answer with "Amina", a very complex project that aims at a new promotion of Sardinia internationally, aimed at rediscovering the island as a travel destination, far from the concept of hit and run tourism: «What moved this project was a question: what is identity? The second question was: is there a Sardinian word that indicates "identity"? The answer was no, because identity is a modern concept. However, there is something else that each of us carries with him around the world, which is always with us and that no one can steal from us: the soul. So I came to the idea that identity and soul are the same thing and that just like the soul, no one can steal our identity. So I decided to involve a series of visual and performance artists and work on this concept, asking them to do a research through a thought, a memory or a nostalgia, to be used as input for an artistic creation that they should have done from afar ... "

Valeria Orani talked about her project to the microphones of Extralive morning, interviewed by Cristina Marras.

Read and listen the interview in Italian

Artribune - From Sardinia To New York. “Amina’s” Journey, Art-Residency Project Curated By Valeria Orani

by Maurita Cardone

Translation

The Sardinian curator living in New York created a project which brings Sardinian artists to New York for a residence period, for a journey marked by exchange and culture.

Sometimes it is by going away that one finds attachment. This is what often happens to expats who, after leaving their homeland, find that they belong to her; and it is in this way that a desire, a need to bring something back, to give back to our motherland some of the love we took when we left, is born. It happened to theater organizer and curator Valeria Orani, born and raised in Cagliari and, since 2014, living in New York. In two decades worth of cultural projects, Orani had never dedicated any initiative to her motherland, but, in 2019, she launched Amina, an idea which creates a flux which comes and goes from Sardinia to New York (and vice versa) through art and culture, and which includes coming and going in its name as well. Amina, which translates to soul in Sardinian, is a project which brings together artists and motherland to create value through culture.

SARDINIA-NEW YORK ROUND TRIP. “AMINA” BY VALERIA ORANI

”Living abroad, I discovered a stronger bond with my motherland: my New York life has enhanced my Sardinian identity” recalls Orani. “So I started viewing identity as an elastic which brings you to where you are from the more you pull away. The word identity is, at the same, a controversial one though. I looked it up on the Sardinian dictionary and I found out it doesn’t exist except for as a translation of the Italian word. This made me realize that this concept does not exist in our heritage. It is a term referring to one’s roots, but one which was not necessary at that time. So I looked for a Sardinian word with a similar meaning, and this is how I got to the word ‘amina’ only to find that, looking at it in a mirror, it was its Italian counterpart”. A word in Sardinian at the beginning, and in Italian at the end: perfect to talk about the movement Valeria Orani wanted to see in the Sardinian artists who became part of the project. “Starting from the contradiction of identity made by being far away”, Orani says, “I was interested in understanding what is left of this identity once an artist comes up with something outside of their motherland, but nevertheless taking inspiration from something coming from that same motherland”. From this came the idea of tracking down the Cagliari-born curator Fabio Acca, and to give him the task of selecting the artists who were going to go far away and then go back, and to bring stylist and artist Antonio Marras on board as well. Orani already worked with Marras, and she defined him as “an extraordinary example of this idea, since he has worked so much out of Sardinia, but Sardinia remains inside his entire production”. Last May, Marras’ first play was scheduled at the La MaMa theater in New York. However, coronavirus came about: the play was postponed indefinitely, and it will need to be reimagined taking into account the possible future restrictions on public performances.

AMINA’S ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE IN NEW YORK

In the Fall of 2019, however, the three artists chosen by Acca had already spent time researching and residing in New York: it was the time when they had to go far away, in which New York was stimulus and contemporary. The three residences should have then gone into the screening of a performative and artistic result, to be made in Sardinia. The final project should have taken place in Fall 2020 and it would have included live performances. The current emergency and the social distancing rules have forced the curators to rethink this part of the project as well. “At the moment, the idea of an in-person event is not excluded. We will have to see how things go” Orani explained, “but for now we decided to dedicate a short documentary to each of the three experiences, to include both the research conducted in New York and the giving back to Sardinia”. The first artist flying to New York, last September, was the musician and choreographer Maurizio Saiu, who spent a month in the city working on a project titled There is still a little light in my sky, inspired by Maria Lai an her embroidered books. Saiu, who knew the Sardinian artist and used to work with her, started from conversations and reflections made with her, and in her home, now home to the Maria Lai Archives, will resume his artistic residence as soon as possible. It was then Alessandro Carboni’s turn, visual artist and performer, who worked on Contèxt-Ere, a reflection on the idea of weaving and loom as models of a cosmic mind, in relation to visual arts, cartography-making processes and scenic space. The artist puts the modular structures of Sardinian textile production with the elementary units of American minimalism into dialogue, developing a performative practice based on the handling of wool and geometrical shapes. Finally, last December, it was Cristian Chironi’s turn, an artist whose work stems from an interest for traditional Sardinian constructions, such as the Domus de Janas and the Nuraghi, and ends with Le Corbusier and Tadao Ando. His New York project, Image & Imagination, is a new take on traditional Sardinian housing through the study of more recent materials and techniques, with a special attention to the urban context and its vertical architecture, signs and billboards. In conclusion of the residence period, each of the artists was the protagonist of a public event in which they recounted the art and their work, and they shared their artistic journey.

AMINA ARTISTS IN NEW YORK, THEIR RETURN TO SARDINIA AND CORONAVIRUS

Forced to a comprehensive reorganization, now the going back phase begins. The current uncertainty gives us the chance to deepen a reflection which was, from the very beginning, one of the foundations of Amina: how to develop a relationship with Sardinia which goes beyond seasonal tourism and is able to establish synergies between the territory and culture to create experiences. Limitations to movement offer the opportunity to begin a more direct dialogue, maybe even an exclusive one, with the local communities to which the project wants to bring the results of the work done in New York. Valeria Orani calls them “restitution actions” which started off as open performances for an international audience, but will probably end up being done in front of a much more local audience and through a video. The process is still developing.

AMINA: RECOUNTING SARDINIAN CULTURE TO THE WORLD

The desire to recount Sardinian culture to the world remains, as a result, the last step of the project will be bringing to Sardinia a groups of international buyers and influencers who are interested in knowing the island, its traditions and culture under a light which is different than that bringing thousands of tourists to its beautiful Mediterranean beaches. The moment chosen for this trip is carnival, when the Barbagia becomes animated by Dionysian rituals of ancient origins. “The idea is promoting Sardinia through its identity” says Orani, “and show its ancestral nature. We want to achieve this through a way of traveling which is that of the artist. An idea which might be summed up in the slogan ‘travel as an artist’, which is a concept that can be applied to other places other than Sardinia”. Cultural tourism which puts forth the research and wonder of discovery even in one’s own home, which gains new relevance now that international travel is restricted. Orani concludes: “this crisis is confirmation that the intuition inspiring this project presents itself as urgency now, the journey seen as immersion in different customs and culture, or even the re-discovery of one’s own motherland as proximity tourism, are the basis from which we can restart. We can even expand the concept of cultural and experience tourism, which are necessary for the contamination of all arts, including the art of hospitality”. We will learn to travel again, and maybe art will be our guide.

Read in Italian

Fattiditeatro/Amukinaworld - interview Valeria Orani

Simone Pacini in conversation with Valeria Orani

The cold night we are experiencing is the time for action

By Valeria Orani

Pierre St. Lucie, “La Grande Danse Macabre” (1568), Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1923 – Donazione al Pubblico Dominio dal Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/348335

"Accident: sm [noun use of adj. prev.]. - 1. Unexpected event that interrupts the regular course of action; mostly, unhappy event, misfortune "

Anyone who has experienced an accident in their life knows that it comes unexpectedly, without warning. You walk from point A to point B and suddenly you find yourself in a point X not contemplated in your path, which will prevent you forever from arriving at point B and will force you to an unexpected and often indefinite stay in the aforementioned point X. Often this point X is a hospital.
But there are many variations of accidents, not all of them are very serious to take you to the hospital. Some just take you home.
By dint of accumulating accidents, we often learn that in the life of an organism an accident is necessary; like an autoimmune disease, it has a function. Whether you see it or not, understand it immediately or never, interrupting the regular course of action gives you the key to understanding that the time has come to stop and reflect, to correct your path.

The despair of entire work sectors, stopped by the incidence of the coronavirus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, which requires everyone to stop their daily lives to avoid or not create opportunities for small or large crowding, is an "accident". We all understand its usefulness in theory. Crowding could be lethal and lead to the collapse of any health system, with very dangerous consequences for all. We are called to a civic sense, individual and collective.
Collaboration is requested from everyone and decrees are issued with which those who govern us, and therefore have the faculty, impose new and indispensable habits on us.
It is not something that afflicts a single sector, but despite this, there is the perception that the live entertainment sector can be more penalized than others.

But on closer inspection, sectors such as tourism, hotel accommodation, and transport are suffering much more devastating effects than ours. Or, without going too far and remaining in the same ordinance that touches the theater, let's think about how much the events sector can be penalized, whose function - and with it the future of companies with many employees - passes entirely through sales. The Salone del Mobile in Milan, or VinItaly, are showcases of sectors that move the Italian economy and involve thousands of companies and workers. All of them, like the others, find themselves facing a terrible uncertainty, which if we want is even more terrible because we are talking about private companies, without any public support.

So why does our live entertainment industry feel more penalized? At the beginning of the epidemic, indignation was raised high by the fact that theaters and not supermarkets had been closed. On what kind of rational calculation was that controversy based?

A Buddhist fairy tale tells of a bird, named Konkucho, who is damned by the cold at night and swears to himself to build his warmest nest as soon as the sun rises. Then in the morning he wakes up with the high and hot sun, forgets the intentions of the night before and does not strengthen his nest, and then ends up suffering and cursing again the following night.

The ban on demonstrations, like the Konkucho bird, comes on a cold night.
Unexpected like all things that hopefully will not happen, but predictable because all of us, when we sign a contract, know that our rights are protected except in the case of force majeure. It is not the first time that in Italy in recent years there have been causes of force majeure that temporarily blockwork.
Natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods have blocked the lives of entire communities, closed theaters, and canceled entire seasons, although, of course, the live entertainment industry in its entirety has never been as affected as today.

A few weeks ago, before the general lockdown, there were many declarations of protest and disappointment, in which it was aired more or less quietly that our sector was more mistreated than others, and its state of necessity was emphasized as a pre-eminent issue a necessity of society as a whole as if not going to the theater was as important as not eating. But today our problem, the collective one, is how to eat and how to keep us healthy, while the problem of those who do not live with the live show ends up in the background, together with the economic crisis that will hit all the production sectors of the country.
Today we rightly ask for protection, we ask for consideration, help, support… Today we ask. But yesterday?

Yesterday it was normal to sell shows to theaters that (under) pay for the work, who pay their wages after three months when it goes well; yesterday it was normal to go to collection and to derogate from the regulation that would like the theater to deliver that collection the day after the rerun; yesterday it was normal to no longer be able to circulate the shows due to the new ministerial decrees - which sanctioned in a granitic way the exchange of shows between National Theaters, which fix the value of an artistic product in the number of paying spectators, which require that circuits pay exclusive attention to the companies of their region. Spending tens of thousands of euros to produce shows that are thrown away immediately after their debuts is the norm for many theaters, those with a capital T, but today - we are asking for support - everyone seems to have forgotten it. And again, yesterday a state of affairs was normal in which tenders are always won by the usual ones, where there are no transparent expressions of interest, where the CCNL is put into practice only by a specific number of Productions and Theaters, while everything else the sector does not care happily, without creating the bases of minimum protection for employees and putting them in a position to face any accident with the allowances provided by the INPS. Yesterday it was not a real problem that freelancers had not created, as is the case for all other sectors, social security funds for their protection. where there are no transparent expressions of interest, where the CCNL is put into practice only by a specific number of Productions and Theaters, while the rest of the sector does not care happily, without creating the bases of minimum protection for employees and putting them in conditions for dealing with any accident with the indemnities provided by the INPS. Yesterday it was not a real problem that freelancers had not created, as is the case for all other sectors, social security funds for their protection. where there are no transparent expressions of interest, where the CCNL is put into practice only by a specific number of Productions and Theaters, while the rest of the sector does not care happily, without creating the bases of minimum protection for employees and putting them in conditions for dealing with any accident with the indemnities provided by the INPS. Yesterday it was not a real problem that freelancers had not created, as is the case for all other sectors, social security funds for their protection. without creating the bases for the minimum protection of employees and putting them in a position to face any accident with the indemnities provided by INPS. Yesterday it was not a real problem that freelancers had not created, as is the case for all other sectors, social security funds for their protection. without creating the bases for the minimum protection of employees and putting them in a position to face any accident with the indemnities provided by INPS. Yesterday it was not a real problem that freelancers had not created, as is the case for all other sectors, social security funds for their protection.

Today we have an accident, the coronavirus, which perhaps more than a virus is an antibody, an expedient to understand how much we should immediately run for cover to inhabit a "system" that we have modified to make it unlivable, mistreated, and mortified by our own actions. We have canceled trade unions and associations, built small niches of belonging. Divisions, small watertight compartments where we were only able to cultivate, and often badly, our garden, also authorizing the new generations to think that it was normal to live to onboard, allowing unfair competition, pirate management, undeclared work.
Things are slightly better for theaters that have staff with fixed-term or permanent contracts, where social safety nets can be adopted in a more systematic way. But the freelancers who also lend their work in those theaters? And the others? Theater companies in general?

For six years I have lived in the United States, where welfare is non-existent, as well as public participation for many working sectors. It is true that taxes are lower and you can download more expenses, but everything costs much more. Insurance, for example, costs a lot, figures unthinkable for us, which in any case do not cover 100 percent of medical expenses, which in turn are much higher than those we are used to in Italy.
By staying here and doing my job, I had confirmation of how important the social organization of the art and live entertainment sector is. Here there is no professionalism that does not compare with unions and trade associations, which admit you only after evaluating your professional skills in terms of concrete work and curriculum.

The protection of the sector must be our priority: safeguarding professionalism, excluding those who do not follow the rules, having professional funds, being able to participate in the distribution of funds and tenders, networks, work, money, life.
The need to act as private entrepreneurs is not an ideology, it is to read reality for what it is, for what we really have available, to live in the real world forever abandoning the illusion that someone can save us more than we can. themselves.

An entertainment worker in Italy is much luckier than an American peer, at least in theory. We have public funds, social safety nets, services, allowances. We don't know where to start, yet the world, the life we ​​have chosen, is no longer that of the bohemians or eternal "miserable". We all deserve dignity, we work, it is not correct that show business workers are perceived as a burden for civil society. We are not, just as workers in other sectors are not. We take this opportunity as an expedient to improve, and we begin once and for all to be a category. We should be radical and even a little ruthless in preventing the circumvention of the rules, we should have legal offices on our side, build supplementary funds, we should respect the professionalism that we have achieved so hard by creating paths that open to the new but not indiscriminate. In a word, we should be united. Union.

The time to act is the cold night, let us remember that under the hot sun all suffering will be forgotten and we will still postpone the solution of our problems by delegating to others the perception of our value.

Read in Italian

Il Piccolo - Trump’s America as Seen from the Inside According to Will Eno, Today’s Beckett

by Roberto Canziani

(Translation)

From tomorrow until Sunday, at the Sala Bartoli, Francesco Mandelli will interpret the neurosis, the instability and the loneliness of the US.

There was a time when the latest of American theater would immediately reach Italy. Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, or David Mamet would write something, and one would find it a couple of months later in Italy. Now, Italy has become more scared, more cautious, more narrow-minded. More absolutist.

And yet, Will Eno, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, is one of those authors who are worth knowing, because he gives us a sense of what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic, in Trump’s America.

From tomorrow until the 19th (Sunday), at Rossetti’s Sala Bartoli, Proprietà e atto, third and last chapter of an “American” trilogy, will be portrayed. Over the years, actors Elio Germano (Thom Pain, 2011) and Isabella Ragonese (Lady Gray), participated in the trilogy with two memorable monologues shown at Mittelfest. It is up to popular MTV personality Francesco Mandelli (of I soliti idioti and Quelli che il calcio), together with the young and talented director Leonardo Lidi, to add the third piece to this puzzle giving us a picture of America as seen from the inside, with its neurosis and instability. And in some of its loneliness: in fact, Permanent Exile, Monologue for a Slightly Foreign Man is the subtitle of the play.

“Monologue is the form of expression in which I find myself the most. I find it exciting that one single voice is the one directing the entire orchestra of thoughts. This way, writing can be powerful but, at the same time, elegant.” Will Eno said so during a brief stay in Rome, when the determination of two intuitive ladies of Italian theater, Bam Teatro’s Marcella Crivellenti (who produced the three shows) and Valeria Orani (who created the project which is shipping the Italian and American dramaturgies across the Atlantic) made it possible for him to know Italy. And for us to know him.

“I had never thought of these three works as a trilogy – the author explained – but now that I’ve seen them together, played in a different language, I have to say it works. I realize, as I reconsider them together, that I am exactly in the present, and each and every time I feel like something exciting is about to happen.”

Eno’s writing is not mad about psychology like that of his colleagues who only write thinking about Broadway and profit. His characters are never fully defined: in order to complete them, to give them a meaning, one must always use the audience’s collaboration and imagination. That is to say, of different people who see different things, but find in the words they hear a common currency, a shared dream.

“It is precisely because of this that I think the best spot to watch my works is the very last row at the end of the theater – he added. Because from there, one can see the actor on stage, but also the whole audience, and this makes sense. There is much more humanity in the parterre than there is behind the scenes. What keeps fascinating me about theater is its ability to unite people.”

Press has often defined Will Eno as “the Beckett of contemporary theater”, thus evoking the innovation and confusion in the description of the scene introduced by the Irish Nobel Laureate some seventy years ago. And yet, the sense and sentiment enveloping Eno’s works are profoundly American and, to be more precise, from New York.

“If I think about the first thing I’ve ever written – he concludes – well, it is a torn piece of paper, that is the amount of strength I used to press my pencil to get something out of me. Now, at 54, I finally understand how writing works. One must really want to get something out of oneself, but with the pressure one has to keep it inside.” It really sounded like something Beckett would say. An American Beckett, and a contemporary one.

Liminateatri

by Patrizia Vitrugno

(Translation)

Precariousness as a lifestyle, as a resource, as evolution and revolution. This is the challenge that Valeria Orani, producer, organizer, a free spirit of the Italian theater and a visionary, decided to take when she moved to New York in 2014. Because, in her own words, “it’s right in this state of precariousness that talent if you have it, can emerge and break loose. Her talent is very lively. You see it in the energy she sends out when she speaks, in her warm and cheerful laugh mixed with the apparent rigorousness she gets from her Sardinian background. 

She smiles when she tells about her move to the Big Apple using a powerful metaphor: “I left a yacht to land on a raft. I’m using the word raft because it is something very precarious that could sink in no time. However, I’m working to make it bigger and more stable thanks to a few plastic bottles that I now and then find along the way. Surely in my journey, I could come across a big yacht ready to take me on board, or I could land on the ground, I don’t know, everything is continuously evolving and it is all very exciting. Now I know that if anything should happen to me, I would be able to start over again quickly. 

Her vision of life is inspiring and revolutionary. I have been working for over 30 years and I have always thought that you need to create a future for yourself. Ironically since becoming a mother, I don’t think there is a future to build anymore just the present and it’s terrible. However, if you stop and consider this and start to live in the present, things get better.”

We are speaking about the world of artists and people who have made this world their job. Just like Valeria that after having worked as producer and organizer for numerous public and private artistic organizations, in 2003 decided to establish a company, 369gradi focused on the production, promotion, and distribution of contemporary culture and on innovative artists such as Punta Corsara and Lucia Calamaro.
369gradi becomes the bridge between Italy and the US when Valeria moves to New York to test the feasibility of a new platform aimed at connecting the US market with the Italian contemporary culture. Based on this in 2015 she sets up Umanism NY. Thanks to the partnership with the E. Martin Segal Center directed by Frank Hentschker, Valeria launches the Italian & American Playwrights Project, a biennial initiative focused on the dissemination of Italian contemporary dramaturgy in the US and of American playwrights in Italy. Since its first edition, the project enjoys the support of the Italian Cultural Institute in New York and of RAI3 (media partner).

“ This project gives me the opportunity to create a dialog with American organizations that host our events featuring special guests such as Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari of Teatro delle Albe or Stefano Massini before his success with Lehman Brothers.
“We are also very proud to announce that the Italian & American Playwrights Projects was awarded the 2019 Prize for the promotion and dissemination of Italian culture and language abroad (Premio per la Traduzione Fondo per il potenziamento della cultura e della lingua Italiana all’estero 2019) and listed first on the official announcement by the Italian Ministry for Culture (MIBACT).”

“On December 18 we closed our first two editions with a presentation of a new collection of plays “New Plays from Italy Vol. 3 published by Martin E. Segal Theater Publications curated by Frank Hentschker and myself. The collection features some of the most innovative and exciting authors of the Italian contemporary theater scene. During the event, we staged a reading in English of the full play “Event Horizon” by Elisa Casseri winner of the Riccione Prize (one of the event’s partners). The play was translated by Adriana Rossetto and was directed by Marco Calvani. We are now working on the next edition. We are always trying to set new more ambitious targets for our research into dramaturgy and we can tell you there will be some exciting news.”

How is the Italian dramaturgy doing?

“Art doesn’t stop, it doesn’t care about what the critics or organizations do.

In Italy, I think there is a lack of curiosity because dramaturgy is only what you see in the theater,  if it is not there, nobody knows it exists. This is wrong. Here in New York, dramaturgy and shows are two separate things. In Italy, it’s all about the same authors, probably because organizations are more focused on getting public funding to produce shows than on creating hubs for growth. This is a situation generated by the system. Maybe we should hope for a total breakdown and a reset of the whole system.” 
Reset is another recurring term in Valeria’s story. Reset is a prerequisite of precariousness. It became the vital lymph for Valeria’s job that could no longer go on in the way she was doing it in Italy. It needed a reset. Thus, the decision of a fresh start, a new life more in synch with her inner self.

“Since moving to New York, I have wiped out completely my years in Rome. It looks like they never happened. On the other hand, I feel more Sardinian now than ever, I have also rediscovered the accent that I had lost or mixed with the Roman way of speaking. Lately, I think a lot about my being far from Rome. Distance gives way to things like nostalgia, makes you rethink and elaborate on your links with your family and search for sensations and flavors that can fill that void.”

The relationship with Sardinia has become stronger since she lives in New York. This can be seen in all her latest projects, the most recent one being My Heart I’m suffering. What can I do for you? by Antonio Marras that opened the 2019-20 season of Teatro Elfo Puccini in Milan.

“This project too comes from a reset and a return to production, an activity I had abandoned when I moved here. My Heart is completely different from any other theater project I have done, particularly from a production perspective. There is a need to give voice to the urgency of an eclectic artist, a well-respected, visionary and talented fashion designer that was already experimenting with performing arts in his fashion shows.”

This project is best described in Ferdinando Bruni’s definition of it as a “magazine” meaning that it is not just a show but a collection of frames bound together by Marco Angelilli’s choreographies in the same way as Marras’ clothes are made of different pieces of fabric sewn together by highly visible seams.    

My task has been to understand what this urgency was and to defend it. In the past I defended the urgency of other very talented artists who, however, had a different purpose, more connected with their own path. In this case, there is a completely different dimension, far from the usual dynamics. 

Another project that links Valeria to her native land is journey encompassing theater, hospitality and identity that can be defined in a single word: Soul.

“Distance is an ever-present theme in my research. Every output that distance produces is always interesting from my point of view. This feeling is then connected with identity, a strange and controversial concept, somewhat useless until the modern age, also because our identity is always a mix of identities.

So, I decided to bid for a grant by the Sardinia Region funded by the European Union’s Identity Lab 2 Program (PO FESR 2014-2020) with Fabio Acca, a producer, and expert of dance and contemporary performing arts. 

We asked ourselves what could be defined as identity and how it could be found in the work of artists who live far from their native land. Because the irony about identity is that the more distant you are the more it follows you and sticks to you.”

So, this is how Amina >Anima Soul was born. The project is articulated into 4 stages. The first one “Sardinia-New York-Sardinia” curated by Fabio Acca is a New York residency for three Sardinian artists who will each carry on their personal research inspired by a Sardinian topos. A first synthesis of the artists’ research processes will be presented after the end of each residency.

The first artist was Alessandro Carboni with his project Contèx-Ere based around the traditional weaving on a manual loom called “Flame of Nule” from the name of the village in Sardinia where this art was developed. 

Alessandro’s objective is to find possible declinations of the concept of threads and weaving with visual arts, geographical mapping, and scenic space.

The next artists to come to New York will be Cristian Chironi who, with his project “Imagine & Imagination” will explore Sardinian traditional housing through the study of materials and of the most recent building techniques. 

The third artist will be Maurizio Saiu who, with his project Sa dom’è s’orcu, will use the interaction between dance and voice to draw an evocative picture of his native Sardinia.

The second stage of the project is linked to the show “My Heart” by Antonio Marras that will be performed in New York in May at La MaMa Theatre, one of the most important theaters in the city’s contemporary scene.  The third stage, taking place also in May, is a Curatorial Food Program that will bring to New York two projects: one by Enrico Costanza a culinary gardener and an expert in the cross-contamination between culinary art and contemporary art, and one by Laura Sechi, a culinary expert whose research focuses on the fusion of different types of food and tastes.

The fourth and last stage of this project is called “The Journey” and will be an actual trip to Sardinia, to the remote places that have inspired the work of the artistic residencies in New York in the first stage. A selected number of participants – journalists, curators, art professionals, influencers including young people expert in social media and web – will be able to meet in the places that have inspired this project, engaging in conversations on how to positively promote these areas not through mass tourism, something Sardinian dislike, but through a new type of involvement that will have to be investigated.

The answers are the expected outcome of this project, ambitiously focused around the concept of “Soul”.

“The word Amina means Soul in the Sardinian dialect which reads backward as “Anima”, the Italian word for Soul.  It’s a round trip also visually. Our guests will leave the US with a “soul” and will come back with a Sardinian “Amina”. At least, this is what we hope will happen! It’s a great opportunity for me as it could open a new phase in my professional life”.

The concept of soul is not accidental in Valeria’s professional life.
“Soul is our essence. You can call it in many ways but it’s something that defines you. In the end we are 21 grams. Everything I do is connected to spirituality. Also, the mechanism that allows you to stop your mind and act is connected to spirituality, in my case I call it Buddhism. If what we do doesn’t embrace something deeper, nothing makes sense”.

Valeria arrived in New York thanks to a Visa for extraordinary skills.  While remembering this detail, she still laughs, almost in disbelief.

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Mi Tomorrow - Valeria Orani, The Theater And The Big Apple. “That New Year’s Eve In Milan …

by Davide Mamone

(Translation)

It was New Year’s Eve in 1990 when Valeria Orani first discovered the streets of Milan. She was working on the end-of-the-year show that however finished before the midnight: “I didn’t know what to do and I hadn’t made any plans so I ended up in Duomo Square”. Thirty years later, that young girl from Sardinia lost in the streets of Milan has become a theater producer in New York. She is the organizer of an event taking place at the Italian Institute of Culture during the week dedicated to the Italian language featuring Italian actress Isabella Ragonese. 

She knew she wanted to work in Theater since she was 14 and lived in Cagliari. However, it was only when moved from Sardinia that she felt she had started something that was her own. “In Milan, the city that “lives” representing the more elegant image that the city developed after the years of the “Milano da bere (Milan to drink)* I collected many stories that stimulated my imagination”. Her master was Fulvio Fo, brother of the famous Dario Fo. “Theater made me realize that everything is ephemeral, even richness: this is the foundation of my love for this job”. 

She started as an assistant and organizer in a theater company. These were the years where in Milan, even if you were young, you could make a lot of money with culture. Everybody called me “the child” because I was always the youngest in the company. The youngest yet with a lot of responsibilities.: “My challenge was to make them accept the idea that although, younger I was their boss”. The turning point was when I met the actor Alessandro Benvenuti.

“I spent my years in Milan trying to understand what I wanted to become: thanks to Alessandro I finally understood it. After the stint in Milan, Valeria moves to Rome where she becomes executive producer in Benvenuti’s company. Here she understands her vision of theater. “ Merging innovation with tradition: I could never stand the duality between rich and poor and I believe there shouldn’t be borders between the two”

The years in Rome are busy ones. In 2003 she founds an association, that eventually is incorporated into a company, 369gradi. The company is presented as a case study at the first edition of Good Practice of Paolo Grassi School of Theater in Milano, “a place where budding artists could move their first steps”. In 2009 she takes over Benvenuti’s company. In 2014 she takes the plunge, a little accidentally: Manhattan. “I saw in this city the opportunity to widen my artistic vision”.

Valeria moves to New York after a tourist trip. She is fascinated by “the artistic turmoil of the pop culture”, but when she moves there she is a little overwhelmed. The idea of New York I had was very different from the reality I found there. New York is a truly difficult city but it has a quality that I haven’t found anywhere else not even in Milan: it is dialogs with people who are able to live in it and rewards the brave”. 

In New York, Valeria continues to work for his Italian company and establishes Umanism, a consultancy company that focuses on culture and that collaborates with partners such as the Italian Institute of Culture. “I haven’t still been able to fully understand this city, it certainly is not so open to innovation as I thought. However, it is an environment where you don’t have any other alternative but to grow”. Valeria present is split between Manhattan and Milano, where she is producing a new show with Antonio Marras. What about tomorrow? “I’m intrigued by the idea of going back to Cagliari, I have been traveling a long time”. However, I’m also thinking about Milan that is now my new point of reference in Europe”.

AT THE ITALIAN INSTITUTE OF CULTURE 

“The show “On a Solitary Beach” is a voyage in tribute to the Italian language in the theater, and, in particular, to Camilleri”. The event, that took place at the Italian Institute of Culture in New York, is part of “The Week of the Italian Language in the World” ending tomorrow. Actress Isabella Ragonese from Palermo was the protagonist of the event organized by Valeria and part of the Italian Playwrights Project. 

THE ANECDOTE 

Milan as she knew it as a girl was full of anecdotes. She remembers one in particular with a smile: a time when Fulvio and Dario Fo, Giustino Durano and Mario Carotenuto spent the night dressed as sheiks. They did not change after the show and took 20 cabs with 20 ballerinas pretending to want to book hotel rooms like that”. “It did not end well, they were taken to the police station” 

THE NEW MILAN

In the last months Valeria increased her visits to Milan for the production of the show “My heart I’m suffering, what can I do for you” by Antonio Marras. “It feels like going back to the little girl from Cagliari in 1990” 

*a description coined during the 80s that originated as a slogan for commercials but that soon became a byword for a milieu where, under the sleek glittering surface of fashion, hot spots and nightlife, a world of unprincipled young go-getters, businessmen and corrupt politicians started emerging.

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Lampoon - Antonio Marras And The Arts. In A Word: Curiosity

Lampoon - Antonio Marras And The Arts. In A Word: Curiosity

International Voices Project - Interview with the curator Valeria Orani

Elle (Italy) - Antonio Marras from fashion to theater because “I always need a story in to be able to create”

by Micaela Roberta Tenace

(Translation )

MY HEART I’M SUFFERING WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU? IS THE ENIGMATIC TITLE OF THE FIRST THEATER PERFORMANCE BY SARDINA BORN DESIGNER, WRITER, AND DIRECTOR OF THE PIECE, ANTONIO MARRAS CREATES HIS PERSONAL POINT OF CONTACT BETWEEN FASHION AND THEATER: THE STORY IS AN EMOTIONAL PUZZLE OF FEARS AND MEMORIES 

Darkness. The rhythmic beat of a heart, the white and primitive sound we hear in our mother’s womb. A sound “bum bum” that awakens different sensations in whoever is listening to it.
And then a dim light that goes on and off in sync with the ancient beating of a heart.
This is the first scene of My heart I’m suffering what can I do form you?, the first theatrical piece written and directed by designer Antonio Marras and produced by Valeria Orani, artistic director of 369gradi.
The story is paced by a sort of creative ECG in a rhythmic alternation of 14 scenes going from slow to fast, calm to anxiety, bradycardia to tachycardia,. A debut for the creative director, that we met after the premiere at Teatro Massimo in Cagliari, waiting for the dates in Milan, Rome, Bari and probably New York in 2019/2020.

«This is the story of a detachment, cutting, amputation. Of pain, separations and of non-return. About the impossibility to communicate with the person who is at your side. My intention was to surface moments that we have decided to hide or somehow to forget. This is what I asked the actors to do after I explained to them the text: I didn’t want them to simply play, I wanted them to find episodes inside of them that could awaken these types of emotions.  Everyone had to become like an archaeologist of their own soul. 

«I’m very attached to these little songs, I remember when I went with my sisters to the musicals. My memory, in general, is not great but I don’t know why I can easily remember song lyrics. There are refrains that get inside my head and don’t go away.  The lyrics of this song, express very profound things: it enquires about the inability to dig inside our heart, to govern it and to point it out towards what we desire. Because our damned heart tends to just do what it wants ».

«I had the need to express something. I have listened, understood, received, remembered things that belonged to me or came to me from other sources. I have processed everything and put them back together to build this work: passages from Italo Calvino and Shakespeare, woven into a loom inspired by Dino Buzzati and divided by season. I was so lucky to meet some of the best actors of contemporary Italian theater: Ferdinando Bruni – founder and director of Teatro Elfo in Milan - Marco Vergani and Federica Fracassi. Simonetta Gianfelici, a beautiful ex-top model who has often worked with Marras at fashion shows is also on stage. I did no task the actors to act like they normally do but to absorb and process everything. In short to tailor-made their own part ».

«Yes, clothes also play a very special role on stage. They are never worn they are just placed on the body, badly fastened with leather straps. On stage, there is no need for costumes. Everybody wears underwear, naked, clothes are out of place. In the final scene where couples of brides and grooms entwine and merge their bodies – girls wear real wedding dresses, purchased at vintage markets. This was my “perversion” with thousands of clothes in my collections I went to look for clothes with a history, which had been worn by real brides and carried heartbreaking emotions with them. »

Your performance looks like a living work of art ...

«Definetly, this work is for others to “wear” in different ways. I have always thought that if this project of mine would have become a traveling show, I would have asked somebody local to be in it. Here in Sardinia, I found Vincezo Puxeddu – a dancer and a therapist who, a year ago, had an accident that caused him the amputation of one leg. I also met Elena Ledda who is wonderful when she goes from the singing of Sardinian lullabies  "Cantu a Dillu" to the rosary recited by hired mourners at deathbeds. In the scene they play together, Vincenzo enters supported by a mamuthone (a mask of the Sardinian Carnival) covered in sheep wool carrying a typical object called "carriga" (a sort of bouquet made of old bells), moving in an intense and desperate kind of two men walk ».

What is the role of Valeria Orani?

«I had never met her in person before, but she always thought we should do something together. So when she was asked to produce this idea of mine, she did not think twice and she embraced it body and soul. ».

Are there analogies between the creation of a fashion collection and of a theater piece?

«When I create I always need a story, a canvas, a tale from where to start. It doesn’t matter if it is a book, a character, a photo: from Gramsci to the Sardinian bandit woman, Paska Devaddis, to the geishas. My wife Patrizia helps me with this, she is very good: her contribution has been important also in this new path. ».

PAC - “Le Albe” in New York and other fragment of dramaturgy: interview to Valeria Orani

by Renzo Francabandera

(Translation)

There you are, after spending quite a few hours on a plane, on a new continent. Your cab leaves the airport and drives along numbered streets. Incredibly tall towers, bright LEDs, store windows, food vendors, the river of people, the river. Maybe this is what they saw when they arrived. 

Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari, founders and artistic directors of Teatro delle Albe, will be in New York on December 13 and 14 for a special edition of  The Italian Playwrights Project, curated by Valeria Orani and Frank Hentschker.

A two-day conversation with readings by Ermanna Montanari from Teatro delle Albe’s latest production, Love’s Faithful (fedeli d’amore) – A Polyptych in Seven Panels for Dante Alighieri (translated into English by Thomas Simpson).
“Cantiere Dante” will be followed by the Divine Comedy 2017-2021 (at Ravenna Festival, Matera-Basilicata 2019 and Timisoara 2021) and “The sky over Kibera”, an adaptation of the Divine Comedy that will be staged in the slum of Nairobi thanks to Avsi. For “Love’s Faithful” and “Va’ Pensiero”, Ermanna Montanari has been shortlisted as best actress for the Ubu Prize 2018.

During the conversations and readings on December 13-14 Ermanna Montanari and Marco Martinelli will dialog with curators of the Italian Playwrights Project Valeria Orani - Director of Umanism New York and of 369gradi, Italy - and Frank Hentschker, Director of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center-Graduate Center CUNY. The conversation will be moderated by Federico Rampini, journalist, writer, US Bureau Chief of La Repubblica.

This two-day event organized in partnership with La MaMa Theatre headed by Mia Yoo (Tony Award in 2018), Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò–New York University headed by Stefano Albertini and the Italian Institute of Culture of New York headed by Giorgio Van Straten, is part of the second edition of the Italian Playwrights Project. The first edition of the Italian Playwright Project, an initiative created in New York in 2015 to promote the Italian dramaturgy hosted a special event in 2016 dedicated to Stefano Massini.
We interviewed Valeria Orani.

Valeria, what is the sunrise like in New York? You must have seen many of them with the jat-lag when you moved there?

Thanks Renzo, I’m really happy to answer this question. Sunrise here in NYC is the color of gold. Literally, when the sun rises it is so golden that everything is washed in gold. I have seen many sunrises, because of jet-lag and because I usually wake up very early.

And after the American Playwright Project last year, this year you got “Le Albe” (Albe in Italian means “sunrise”– note of the translator) to come to New York from Italy to round-off 2018. Ermanna e Marco.... a nice present for Newyorkers

Ermanna e Marco are a wonderful present for anybody who has been lucky enough to meet them. I feel priviledged and I’m happy to host them in New York for two appointments at La MaMa Theatre on December 13 and at Casa Italiana NYU the day after.
The program consists of two days of conversations on Marco Martinelli’s dramaturgy and on the artistic path of Le Albe with the participation of Frank Hentschker, Director of the Segal Center and associate curator of the project, Allison Cornish, Professor at NYU, expert on Dante studies and Vice President of Dante Society, Federico Rampini, U.S. Bureau Chief of la Repubblica. The panel will draw a parallel between the contemporary society and Dante’s.
During the two-days event, Ermanna will read some passages from “Love Faithfulf” and the Canto XXXIII of the Divine Comedy (in Italian with English supertitles).

The first day of the event, there will also be a reading in English: Under Marco Martinelli’s direction, Rocco Sisto will interpret a passage from Rumore di Acque (Noise of Water) translated by Thomas Simpson.
The Italian Playwrights Project runs every two years. This is the second edition. In the first year, short excerpts of pre-selected texts are presented. During the second year these texts are translated in full and the appointment with the public includes a meeting with a representative author of the Italian scene. The first year we hosted Stefano Massini. Our invitation came at the same time as Sam Mendes' intention to produce Lehman Trilogy, which will soon be staged here in NY after London.

From the Italian Playwrights Project a fruitful dialogue with the New York scene has begun for Massini. PlayCo, a major off-Broadway production, after our meeting, decided to stage “Intractable Woman”, which premiered last September.

The New York scene completely or almost completely ignores the contemporary Italian panorama, especially as regards live arts. Luck must be built and helped. The intent of the Italian Playwrightis Project is precisely to contribute in this sense.

What do you think is the profound theme of which the Teatro delle Albe is the bearer and which can interest a city like New York?

Let's start with the work that Le Albe dedicates to Dante.

The contemporaneity of the contents of the Divine Comedy is certainly a theme that touches the sensitivity of the entire intellectual world, including the American one.

Cantiere Dante is an excellent starting point to spark interest and collaboration with the USA. Like all projects, it looks to the future. With Le Albe we are experiencing the start of a path that will develop over the next two years with professional and academic structures and which, starting from New York, will touch other stages such as Pennsylvania and Chicago.

And you, as a cultural programmer, who come from the school of Fulvio Fo, what do you think it means to program culture in society? Do you think there is really a lot of distance between America and Italy? And is New York really America?

Fulvio Fo taught me the role that an organizer must know how to support and the responsibility he has towards artists and art as a cultural vehicle with the society that surrounds us. This attention contains the meaning and urgency. Programming culture through theater or dramaturgy is to universally translate the artist's intimate urgency to tell a part of himself or an intimate vision of her. In a historical moment in which anyone feels authorized to have their priorities poured into the world, the role of those who promote culture becomes more delicate, because the responsibility is also to know how to recognize what is really worth transmitting.

I believe that New York is not America, just as I believe that Italy is not Europe.

The distance between New York and Italy is certainly great. The most obvious difference for me is the perception of one's own value, even economic. Promoting contemporary Italian culture means filling an important void but also knowing how to do it to meet a need that is more Italian than American. With this perspective, the risk and responsibility double, but it is worth it.

You have also recently been the producer of Marras's “crazy” and grandiose scenic challenge. What has this enterprise added to your path?

Anyone who knows my work knows that for a long time I have dedicated myself to the dialogue between artistic disciplines. 369gradi was born precisely to bring together artists with different origins. “My heart I am suffering. What can I do for you? was born first of all as a performance, site specific in the former Folonari Cellars of Brescia to support an exhibition by Antonio Marras, a multifaceted artist who uses his success in fashion as a pretext to express himself in the arts. Marras' talent, enthusiasm and "madness" have managed to involve a team of great value and recognized professionalism. A production that involves more than thirty people including performers and collaborators, all literally enraptured and enthusiastic about what we are managing to build together. A difficult project, because it was born big, started now - after the preview in Sardinia brought to the stage thanks to the Cedac Circuit - to debut in the national premiere next autumn 2019.

However, I would not like to call this a challenge. Antonio Marras approaches the theater as a possible place to be able to express his vision, as he already does in other artistic environments, as well as to reiterate that there can be no borders, discrimination, even in the arts.

As a programmer from two continents, does it take more courage to leave, to stay or to return? And the challenge is to remain humanist, as well as human?

The first time I left I was 19. By now my life is made up of departures rather than permanence. I don't know the courage to stay; leaving I consider a natural status of the life I have chosen. Courage is my personal challenge in putting myself in crisis by responding to my tendencies with strong countertendencies. I am convinced that contemporary humanism passes precisely from recognizing the imperfect nature that belongs to us, transforming it every time we have the opportunity, a concrete action and a great encouragement that is transmitted to me by my daily Buddhist practice. 

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Il Manifesto - Confessions by torn hearts that decide everybody’s destiny

by Gianfranco Capitta

(Translation)

Antonio Marras is a world know fashion designer, considered by many the most refined and intellectual designers in the fashion arena.

Extremely competent and full of imagination, he has now decided to put himself “on the stage”. This is probably how he has conceived his show, produced by Valeria Orani with her company 369 gradi, which has been staged in Cagliari at Teatro Massimo and in Alghero.  

The title of the show “Mio Cuore io sto soffrendo, cosa posso fare per te?” comes from an oldie by Italian singer Rita Pavone (a famous cover of Heart by Timi Yuro).

The performance was written and directed by Marras with the same combination of courage and awareness that gave the clothes he designs and creates international fame.

The courage to show one’s own history, visions, fears, frustrations, mistakes but also hopes, attempts, discoveries, enthusiasm. A sort of analytical confession where each spectator can recognize or remember their own experiences find their own ghosts.

A path that can be upsetting but that can be overcome thanks to its aesthetic and artistic dimension.  

This is what Marras' success shows. A Success marked by many recognitions in the artistic, scientific and professional field. A success he shields from, humbly like in the fifteen scenes that make up his piece.

Images that take inspiration from European literature and popular tradition, from Marras’ native Sardinia folklore which he brings out with suggestions embracing cinema, painting, and the influence of artists such Maria Lai, one of Marras' mentors.

In contrast with the richness of his fashion creations the scenes of My Heart are naked and get populated as the show develops only by “living objects”. The costumes are bare, twenty performers (ten men and ten women) wear only underwear.  It's their bodies that tell the story of a collective childhood. Bodies that under Marco Angelilli’s mastery move in a minimal manner filled with significance.

The special presence of Vincenzo Puxeddu creates one of the show’s most dramatic and disturbing moments of the whole vision.

The cast also includes other important actors such as Ferdinando Bruni, Marco Vergani, and Federica Fracassi …

RadioX - At Teatri Massimo (Cagliari) the premier of "Mio Cuore io sto soffrendo" - Interview to Valeria Orani

Summary

At Teatro Massimo comes the premiere of the show “Mio Cuore io sto soffrendo, cosa posso fare per te?" debut as director of the celebrity fashion-stylist Antonio Marras. We talked about it in the studio in Extralive morning with Valeria Orani, curator of 369gradi production

Videolina / Fuori Sede - Valeria Orani

by Andrea Frailis

Summary

“Enfant terrible” of the 80’s in Cagliari, today (Valeria Orani) is an appreciated and sought-after cultural manager in New York where she organizes, curates and manages artistic events.

Valeria Orani is the protagonist of today's episode of "Fuori Sede", the Videolina program that tells the stories of Sardinian emigrants around the world.

In the interview by Andrea Frailis, directed by Ettore Marongiu and coordinated by Luisanna Pala, Valeria admits that the theater has saved her life (…)

watch (in Italian)

RadioX - First rule: forbidden to talk about "White Rabbit Red Rabbit" interview to Valeria Orani

summary:

 A chair, a table, two glasses, the frills allowed.

An actress or actor who plays the part just one time, without direction and without rehearsal, after opening in front of the audience the sealed envelope with the text of the play and reading its content with the audience.

The “here and now” on its maximum expression.

 This is White Rabbit Red Rabbit: more tha a show a social experiment, written by the Iranian Nassim Soleimanpour in 2010, at the age of 29, while he was in Iran having no chanche to communicate with the outside of his Country. A “one of a kind” show that tests actors and spectators, bound by a pact of complicity and confidentiality, and that arrives in Cagliari after a tour of Italy that has lasted for a year and a half now.

We talked about it at Radio X Social Club with Sergio Benoni, with the actors and with Valeria Orani of the 369gradi who is in charge of its production for Italy, during the press conference to present the shows, scheduled at the Teatro Civico di Castello (…)