From May 9 to 31, 2025, Catanzaro transforms into an international showcase for contemporary performing arts with the first edition of PERFORMING, the biennial festival that breaks down boundaries between genres and expressive languages. The Academy of Fine Arts of Catanzaro becomes the epicenter of a collective and transnational project that unites 12 Italian AFAM institutions and international partners, with support from the PNRR. A month of actions, installations, meetings and performances that traverse body, technology and territory, hosting world-class artists such as Regina José Galindo, Basel Zaraa, Daniela Ortiz and Nezaket Ekici. We spoke about it with Simona Caramia, scientific director of PERFORMING, for the Academy of Fine Arts of Catanzaro.
Regina Jose Galindo, ph. courtesy Performing Festival 2025
Andrea Guerrer: PERFORMING was born as a PNRR project for the internationalization of the AFAM system. How does this international vocation translate concretely into a performing arts festival?
Simona Caramia: The internationalization we aim for is twofold: on one hand it seeks to guarantee knowledge and dialogue with foreign institutions, such as Universities of Fine Arts and Italian Cultural Institutes, in order to enrich the experiential background of artists, students, professors from Academies and Conservatories – examples include the projects developed by Fabio Sandri in collaboration with the University of Gothenburg and by Simone Bergantini with EASDA Escuela de Arte y Superior de Diseño de Alicante in Spain; on the other hand it seeks to bring the most experimental research or the most globally established research to Italy, particularly to Catanzaro, as happens with the May Performing Festival which welcomes renowned artists such as ORLAN and Regina José Galindo..
Elena Antoniu – ph credit Cristina Gavello, courtesy Performing Festival 2025
The festival presents programming that ranges from historical avant-gardes to digital experimentation, also including a section dedicated to the Metaverse. How is this dialogue between tradition and technological innovation articulated?
In Higher Education Institutions for arts and music, the dialogue between traditional languages – even in their contemporary derivatives – and technological innovation is constant. Art practices mix and transgress boundaries, articulating themselves in various educational tracks that seek to guarantee knowledge and stimulate critical thinking. This is possible through the study of the past, of history, of techniques, but also through the acquisition of professionalizing skills that connect students to the demands of the present, of the current world. The Festival reflects this vocation and offers various stimuli; for example, the section dedicated to the Metaverse, curated by Sonia Golemme, allows one to experience, through new technologies, immersive experiences in mixed reality or augmented reality, to question perceptual potentialities and modes of fruition in a digital era.
Basel Zaraa – ph credit Cristina Gavello, courtesy Performing Festival 2025
Among the international guests, names like Regina José Galindo and Daniela Ortiz stand out, artists known for the strong political and social component of their works. What role does the critical dimension and reflection on the present play in PERFORMING?
If I ask myself what role art plays in the present, I think of its possibility to transform our lives, our way of being in the world; this transformative power is expressed at maximum strength when one is young, during the years of academic formation. Extraordinary artists like Galindo, whose performance was curated by Simona Gavioli, or like Ortiz, whose intervention was curated by Dobrila Denegri, have extraordinary value because they show the importance of affirming politically and poetically personal freedoms, those same freedoms that we must never take for granted and that we must defend deeply. Extraordinary artists like these, who have given voice with their body, with their words, with their gestures, to so many stories otherwise relegated to silence, teach us to face the present as atopos, as free spirits, in a singular and original way, outside of any commonplace.
Daniela Ortiz – ph credit Cristina Gavello, courtesy Performing Festival 2025
May 28 was dedicated to Generation Z, with emerging artists like Leonardo Panizza and CultOfMagic, while May 30 will present research projects by established artists like Elena Bellantoni. How does the festival balance the relationship between new generations and established research?
I don’t know if there’s a real balance, perhaps not; but I believe it’s necessary to support and listen to the young generations. Only listening can guarantee that we don’t lose contact with the world that is coming. The last week of the Festival sees on one side the very young artists of tomorrow exposing themselves and putting themselves to the test, also with site-specific performances, on the other side mid-career artists, all already professors in the Academies who will tell about their research projects, whose results will be presented in winter 25/26.
Nezaket Ekici – ph credit Cristina Gavello, courtesy Performing Festival 2025
PERFORMING defines itself as “more than a festival: a research platform, a community of practices.” What are the long-term objectives of this biennial project and how do you imagine its future evolution?
The hope is to make the Festival sustainable and replicable, regardless of the exceptional nature of PNRR funding, starting from a project structure that benefits from the presence of historicized artists, that supports the research of young artists and that allows experimentation with more structured interventions. In the medium term, the objective will be to unite academic training and artistic practices, to mend that systemic disconnection that still persists, although many steps forward have been taken. And obviously we want to contribute to building awareness of contemporary art in the public, even in those less accustomed to it, thanks to direct encounter, in the urban fabric, with artists, theorists and operators from different geographies and generations.
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Actor and performer, he loves visual arts in all their manifestations.
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