INSPIRING, EXPERIMENTING, SHARING. UPERFORM: A PROJECT BY FACTOR HILL COLLECTIVE
If you think that you cannot do culture and art in small towns, if you are discouraged because of the lack of money allocated to performing arts, then listen to this story, as it is dedicated to you. This is how a young Apulian collective tries to question disillusionment and inactivity in small towns. This idea is called Uperform.
INSPIRING
On 21 July 2017, we officially presented our project. First of all, we "invited" and "listened" in a great moment of celebration and creativity.
This is how "Maglie Urbane" was born, an open day at Laboratorio Urbano Rigenera, where performing artists and other people working in this field had the unique chance to meet, get to know each other, exchange ideas, points of view and perspectives. It is an urban invasion where body and sound can better express themselves and their relationship with others than just formally presenting themselves. It is a Speed networking event to exchange ideas, opinions or just knowledge. And lastly 'Self-portraits' by Alessia Lovreglio.
EXPERIMENTING
Immediately afterwards we started CREATE, a call for production aimed at selecting 4 new ideas for a live performance. Gemma Di Tullio from Teatro Pubblico Pugliese worked with us to shortlist the projects and offered her expert support and precious point of view.
The winners were the projects by Iula Marzulli, Miki Gorizia, Marialuisa Capurso, Pier Alfeo and Giovanni Impellizzieri. Multiple subjects and styles depict our idea of plurality and inter-disciplinarity.
In fact, we lastly obtained a still performance about the relationship between humans and nature (Iula Marzulli -Estate_Celebrazione#4), a dance and live music performance (Miki Gorizia - Uno più Uno fanno Uno), a sensorial and sound performance (Marialuisa Capurso and Pier Alfeo - 38Hz) and finally a choreographic-spatial performance (Giovanni Impellizzieri - Le Toi de Moi).
The main focus of this project was therefore producing these works also giving a training opportunity. From October to December, four artistic and research residencies were held to lastly give life to the selected artists' projects and to become part of the spaces of Laboratorio Urbano and being performed throughout the city of Palo del Colle.
In such a way, each location became a real production and discussion centre. In fact, the public has had the direct opportunity to listen and see what was going on. We had the opportunity to involve some people who usually take part into Rigenera activities, people in love with art and performance. During the ten days of each artist's residency, workshops and public events were the right opportunity to share their working methods. A fundamental partner involved in the workshops (where the final performance took place) was MAT Laboratorio Urbano of Terlizzi, a collective that has always strongly supported our initiatives.
SHARING The newly created productions naturally evolved into the final performance "A Maglie Larghe", the second edition of the festival. The participation of international artists such as the Fattoria Vittadini company, a performance that keeps on going on a tour across Europe under the name of Kokoro by Luna Cenere, and the innovative Fragile Artists Collective, have made sure the event could reach a higher arts level.
Emerging artists from the contemporary dance scene such as Yoris Petrillo, Camilla Monga, Erika Schipa and Betti Rollo, Olimpia Fortuni and the Apulian band Buckwise show the multidisciplinary nature of our project.
At the end of the show, a moment of talks and exchange between the artists involved and the public was the right opportunity to generate curiosity and horizontality.
What next? Uperform officially ended in February 2018, but we are ready to start back. The works created with this project started to be distributed just two months ago within the urban laboratory EXVIRI of Noicattaro. We are also happy to work with EX-FADDA, a laboratory of San Vito dei Normanni, as well as with LA CITTADELLA DEGLI ARTISTI of Molfetta and with SPAZIO13 of Bari.
We wish we could start to collaborate while keeping in mind our keywords and spreading our UPERFORM having the vision of inspiring, experimenting and sharing together with us!
/span> Thanks! Factor Hill Collective