Programme

from 3 November

UMANAMENTE EROƏ

with MARGÓ PACIOTTI and KARMA B
viral video on social networks – online only

The project UMANAMENTE EROƏ [Humanly Heros], between reality and digital fiction, revolves around the festival’s main theme and focuses on how individuals can relate to one another in a way that generates mutual trust and collaboration between people. At the frontier between different performative genres –  in between video and multidisciplinary performance, communication and socially-oriented video-making. A multi-platform digital creation coming to life both live, at the festival’s venues, and on its online channels.

from 3 to 7 November from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
from 10 to 14 November from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

KINGS CHRONICLES 

by Collettivo Per Colpa dei King with SAVAGE DICKSON, AGONIA DICKSON, KAWAKEN, PATEMA DICKSON and ERRÍC OTTARO
Centrale Preneste Teatro – sala BIANCA / Via Alberto da Giussano 58
– metro C Pigneto + bus and tram + car/motorbike sharing
Free event
Artistic Residency / Drag – Theatre

This Artistic Residency is dedicated to the development of the new  KINGS CHRONICLES project. The Residency is conceived as a place where artists of the queer scene can devote time to creation, research and experimentation, with the support of professionals in the sector and opportunities to meet with the public and engage in an open dialogue. The Festival designed and conceived the Residency as a moment and a place: a chance for artists to focus intensively on their work and have exchanges with fellow artists as much as a place of interconnection and participation. For more information on the project, check-out and participate to its open-to-the-public events in December.

from 17 to 21 november  from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. from 17 to 21 november from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

SPERO CHE UN SOGNO COSÌ NON RITORNI MAI PIÙ

by ONDADURTO TEATRO with MARGÓ PACIOTTI and KARMA B with the special participation of H.E.R. Centrale Preneste Teatro – sala NERA / Via Alberto da Giussano 58 – metro C Pigneto + bus and tram + car/motorbike sharing Free event Artistic Residency / Drag – Theatre

This Artistic Residency is dedicated to developing the new project SPERO CHE UN SOGNO COSÌ NON RITORNI MAI PIÙ [I hope a dream like this never comes back]. The Residency is conceived as a place where artists of the queer scene can devote time to creation, research and experimentation, with the support of professionals in the sector and with opportunities to meet with the public and engage in an open dialogue. The Festival designed and conceived the Residency as a moment and a place: a chance for artists to focus intensively on their work and have exchanges with fellow artists as much as a place of interconnection and participation. For more information on the project, check-out and participate to its open-to-the-public events in December.

from 17 to 21 November from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. from 24 to 28 November from 10:00 to 2:00 p.m.
 

The Bovary effect

by and with GIULIANO SCARPINATO & ENSEMBLE Centrale Preneste Teatro – sala NERA / Via Alberto da Giussano 58 – metro C Pigneto + bus and tram + car/motorbike sharing Free Event Artistic Residency / Dance

This Artistic Residency is dedicated to the development of the new project THE BOVARY EFFECT. The Residency is conceived as a place where artists of the queer scene can devote time to creation, research and experimentation, with the support of professionals in the sector and with opportunities to meet with the public and engage in an open dialogue. The Festival designed and conceived the Residency as a moment and a place: a chance for artists to focus intensively on their work and have exchanges with fellow artists as much as a place of interconnection and participation. For more information on the project, check-out and participate to its open-to-the-public events in December.

November 10 at 6:00 p.m.

DRAG ME… LAB 1

by and with CHIARA BECCHIMANZI Free event LAB – online only A ruthless confrontation between love coaches trying to teach you how to keep your man, on the one hand, and heroines from the past on the other: what would Antigone, Medea, Electra and Clytemnestra think of the dangerous anti-feminist turn taken by social media? Chiara Becchimanzi, with her desecrating irony, debunks clichés by giving voice to the heroines of Greek tragedy.

November 17 at 6:00 p.m.

DRAG ME… LAB 2

by and with MIKE LUPONE
Free event
LAB – online only

The aim of this lab is to stimulate curiosity, open-mindedness and, why not, also a light-hearted attitude toward the diversity of humans – that light-heartedness which Italo Calvino described as “soaring over things from above, carrying no weights on our  hearts”.
The laboratory will revolve around experimenting with drag aesthetics and putting oneself oself “in the shoes of the other”, as a first step towards acknowledging and respecting every diversity.

November 24 at 6:00 p.m.

DRAG ME… LAB 3

by and with CRISTINA PRENESTINA
Free event
LAB – online only

This lab is aimed at stimulating curiosity and open-mindedness. Fairy tales tell the story of society. But the fairy tales of the past tell of a patriarchal society and promote a gender difference that no longer mirror today’s societies. We need to tell the story of change, of diversity as a value, of equality and equity as a right.
The laboratory will revolve around experimenting with drag aesthetics so as a key to ackowledging and respecting every diversity.

from 29 to 30 November from 10:00 a.m. to 6 p.m.

LAB MAKE YOUR OWN DRAG COSTUME

by and with LA DIAMOND
Centrale Preneste Teatro – sala BIANCA / Via Alberto da Giussano 58
– metro C Pigneto + bus and tram + car/motorbike sharing
Free event
LAB – in presence

Drag art is inclusive and people are free to imagine their character as they wish, but their actual making requires a certain expertise, starting with the costume’s design and creation.
“Nothing is created and nothing is destroyed” says a law of physics which perfectly fits this laboratory. With a little skill and plenty of imagination, anything can become a costume: ribbons can turn into wigs, curtains into clothes, bags into hats, and who knows what else. What matters is looking at things with fresh eyes and an open mind: rather than a metaphor, an exercise for the soul, a glimpse of hope.
The exhibition’s experience will be thus further enriched by this “creative costumes” laboratory, which will offer an opportunity to appreciate the creative process and manual skills of Enrico La Rocca, aka “La Diamond”, who will teach us a few secrets and guide us in this expanded journey into costume-related drag arts: not shell but soul, not form but substance.

02 December 09:00 p.m.

The Bovary effect

by and with  GIULIANO SCARPINATO & ENSEMBLE
Centrale Preneste Teatro – teatro / Via Alberto da Giussano 58
– metro C Pigneto + bus and tram + car/motorbike sharing
Free event
Public showcase, in the form of a talk, of the Artistic Residency’s work

“Madame Bovary” cannot be called “queer” in the sense of an explicit exploration of sexuality or non-heteronormative identity. Yet one may still investigate Emma Bovary’s character and her frustration in 19th-century patriarchal society through queer lens, highlighting her rebellion, her quest for a different and more authentic identity, her frustration with imposed roles.
Trapped in a marriage and a society that constrain her, Emma’s character raises questions about patriarchy and the restrictions imposed on female self-determination – crucial themes of the queer critique.
Her relentless pursuit for more than her life as it is, and her dream of a different identity, can be read as a desire to create a subjectivity who does not conform to social expectations, a desire that resonates with the queer experience of self-searching and affirmation.
I would like Emma to slip off her shoes and flee Flaubert’s pages to come and dance in front of us her thoughts and desires, her burning passion, her embers and the fine dust that remains of her. I would like to see her multiplied into performers, costumes and sets, refracted in an exit-less escherian scenario within a multiplicity of references to literary, theatrical and cinematographic imaginaries. I would like to see an Emma of flesh, trembling and pulsating, inept and bored, aside her men Charles, Léon, Rodolphe, and a transcendent Emma, a myth, an icon, a cliché.
An Emma who stops being a woman to become a way of being, a philosophy, an imaginary.

04 December 09:00 p.m.

DRAG COLLEGE #1

by ONDADURTO TEATRO with KARMA B and MARGÓ PACIOTTI in collaboration with the TBM‘s Artistic Direction Teatro Tor Bella Monaca / Via Bruno Cirino, 5 – metro C Torre Angela + bus + ampi parcheggi nelle vicinanze Free event Theatre – talk

A new format that comes back every year, halfway between a TALK, a LAB and a SHOW. The aim is promoting knowledge on performing arts and providing the tools needed to investigate contemporary times in social terms. In close cooperation with the TBM’s Artistic Direction, the format will engage with the local community in a new experiment that has become one of the project’s cornerstones. Not only will the shows be taking place in the most diverse locations of the city, but different generations will also engage in a direct exchange aimed at creating a new theatre community. So that new generations can understand that fearing what may look “different” does not make sense and has no reason to be. So that CLAIMS fuelling hatred and a total lack of understanding within the new generations can be stripped of meaning… And doing all this by making it possible for new and older generations to meet.
The DRAG COLLEGE has to do with the need to non-define oneself, to tell the story of the discovery and the need to not exclude oneself.  There are no set recipes, no universal solutions; no distorted theories, no miracle cures… there are only different points of view, each of us with our own uniqueness of being.

05 December at 5:30 p.m.

DRAG… THE TALK

 
with SIMONE ALLIVA, ANTONIETTA DE FEO, FEDERICA DI MARTINO, H.E.R., COATTA VEGANA
hosted by KARMA B and MARGÓ PACIOTTI
in collaboration with BIBLIOTECA GOFFREDO MAMELI
Biblioteca Goffredo Mameli / Via del Pigneto 22
Free event
Talk

The talk is organised in three panels. We will start by talking about the current international transphobic wave, trying to understand its causes, interpreting its hidden meanings and imagining solutions for action, reaction and resistance. Then we will talk about queer artists, of how hard it is to find adequate spaces of representation and performance, with the consequence of being either made invisible or rather be used as fetishes, tokens when not freaks. Finally, we will talk about the need for adequate training for those involved in communication, journalism, activism and dissemination, the need for information to be provided in the most appropriate way and in the most appropriate ways to avoid disinformation and fuelling discrimination.

TALK PANELS
1 – Society: the new transphobic wave of our time
2 – Art: Queer Artists and Spaces of Representation
3 – Media and platforms: training, information and disinformation

08 December 09:00 p.m.

SPERO CHE UN SOGNO COSÌ NON RITORNI MAI PIÙ

by ONDADURTO TEATRO with MARGÓ PACIOTTI and KARMA B with the special participation of H.E.R. OFF OFF Theatre / Via Giulia 20 – bus and tram + ample parking nearby + car/motorbike sharing Tickets: full-price 12 EUR / reduced 8 EUR Public showcase, in the form of a talk, of the Artistic Residency’s work

Pop music has played a fundamental role in changing and transforming our society. Cultural products often wrongly considered B-class, such as pop songs, have instead impacted our way of thinking and helped trigger cultural changes of historic importance.
Pop music is indeed extremely influential, perhaps precisely thanks to its status as a popular product intended for mere entertainment but which holds the power to enter the minds and conscience of those listening to it – that’s to say, of all of us. But the contrary is also true: often the messages disseminated by songs and their performers or authors are not about emancipation, but are rather aimed at maintaining a backward and reactionary culture such as male chauvinism.
How many times have we hummed a song without thinking about the true meaning of the often barbaric ideas conveyed, often explicitly, by its lyrics?
During our residency we intend to examine fifty years of Italian music, analyzing the lyrics of the songs that have shaped Italian music and influenced various generations, as a powerful way to access the structural dimension of male dominance.
By making certain forms of male oppression of women and other minority groups sound catchy, some songs endorse and reproduce forms of violence which are no longer acceptable.

09 December  09:00 p.m.

KINGS CHRONICLES

 by COLLETTIVO PER COLPA DEI KING CON SAVAGE DICKSON, AGONIA DICKSON, KAWAKEN, PATEMA DICKSON and ERRÍC OTTARO
Centrale Preneste Teatro – teatro / Via Alberto da Giussano 58
– metro C Pigneto + bus and tram + car/motorbike sharing
Tickets: full price 12 EUR / reduced 8 EUR
Public showcase, in the form of a Drag Show, of the Artistic Residency’s work – Theatre

KINGS CHRONICLES is a project based on themes considered important by the collective. The project intends to use drag as a tool and not as a subject, so as to use its language to inaugurate an experimental and ultra-pop dialogue with the public. The trajectories of the research and development phase will be dictated by the dialogue between the members of the company, in a continuous community remodulation of the project. Specific roles will be assigned but there will be no authority, in continuity with the queer spirit.

12 December 11:30 a.m.

DRAG COLLEGE #2

by ONDADURTO TEATRO with KARMA B and MARGÓ PACIOTTI in collaboration with the TDL’s Artistic Direction Teatro del Lido / Via delle Sirene, 22 – Metro Roma-Lido Lido Centro + bus + ample parking nearby Free event Theatre – Talk

A new format that comes back every year, halfway between a TALK, a LAB and a SHOW. The aim is promoting knowledge on performing arts and providing the tools needed to investigate contemporary times in social terms. In close cooperation with the TDL’s Artistic Direction, the format will engage with the local community in a new experiment that has become one of the project’s cornerstones. Not only will the shows be taking place in the most diverse locations of the city, but different generations will also engage in a direct exchange aimed at creating a new theatre community. To make the new generations understand that  fear for what may appear to be “different” does not make sense or reason to be. So that CLAIMS fuelling hatred and a total lack of understanding within the new generations can be stripped of meaning… And doing all this by making it possible for new and older generations to meet.
The DRAG COLLEGE has to do with the need to non-define oneself, to tell the story of the discovery and the need to not exclude oneself. There are no recipes, there are no unambiguous solutions, there are no distorted theories, there are no miracle cures… there are only different points of view, ognunə with its own uniqueness.

14 December at 5:30 p.m.

GALA DRAG ME UP #1

with CRISTINA PRENESTINA, MORGANA BECKHAM and IWANDA SBELLETTI
and participants in the LAB MAKE YOUR OWN DRAG COSTUME
hosted by KARMA B e MARGÓ PACIOTTI
Teatro del Lido / Via delle Sirene, 22
– Metro Roma-Lido Centro + bus + ample parking nearby
Entrance: full price 12 EUR / reduced 8 EUR
Drag – Theatre

A show format created ad hoc by the festival that welcomes the most talented drag queens in sky-high, 6-inch heels, all under one sparkling roof.   A spectacular event featuring performances from a number of different artists from the contemporary drag scene and the world of television and entertainment.
Inspired by the tradition of the Revue and Variety show, the DRAG ME UP GALA takes the form of a café-concert, which will combine the genre of the Avanspettacolo and Cabaret: the perfect mix of irony and irreverence to represent the witty and glittering spirit of this one-of-a-kind spectacle for a sparkling ending.
The novelty of the new edition will be the involvement of participants in the costumes lab, turning the event in a unique occasion to tear down the barriers between the stage and the audience. This active citizens’ participation will be at the centre of the an ad hoc SPECTACULAR FOCUS on the GALA’s fashion runway.

15 December 09:00 p.m.

GALA DRAG ME UP #2

with PRISCILLA, LA DIAMOND and MIKE LUPONE
and participants of the CREATE YOUR OWN DRAG COSTUME LAB
hosted by KARMA B and MARGÓ PACIOTTI
OFF OFF Theatre / Via Giulia 20
– bus and tram + ample parking nearby + car/motorbike sharing
Entrance: full price 12 EUR / reduced 8 EUR
Drag – Theatre

A show format created ad hoc by the festival that welcomes the most talented drag queens in sky-high, 6-inch heels, all under one sparkling roof. A spectacular event featuring performances from a number of different artists from the contemporary drag scene and the world of television and entertainment.
Inspired by the tradition of the Revue and Variety show, the DRAG ME UP GALA takes the form of a café-concert, which will combine the genre of the Avanspettacolo and Cabaret: the perfect mix of irony and irreverence to represent the witty and glittering spirit of this one-of-a-kind spectacle for a sparkling ending.
The novelty of the new edition will be the involvement of participants in the costumes lab, turning the event in a unique occasion to tear down the barriers between the stage and the audience. This active citizens’ participation will be at the centre of the an ad hoc SPECTACULAR FOCUS on the GALA’s fashion runway.

04 December – vernissage and opening + focus-on & talk with the artist from 06:00 p.m. 05 December from 10:00 a.m. to 06:00 p.m. 06 AND 07 December from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. from 9 to 12 December from 10:00 a.m. to 06:00 p.m.
 13 and 14 December from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

DIAMOND DUST

curated by ANDREA ACOCELLA / BAR.LINA con LA DIAMOND ACCADEMIA ITALIANA / Viale dello Scalo San Lorenzo 10 – metro A and B Termini + bus and tram + car/motorbike sharing Free event
Installation Exhibition – Focus on – Talk

The DIAMOND DUST exhibit, curated by Andrea Acocella / BAR.LINA, arises from the desider to organise in Rome, for the first time ever, an exhibition entirely dedicated to the aesthetic and political universe of one of the most influential and recognizable Italian drag queens of our time, La Diamond.
The project takes shape as an immersive journey that intertwines fashion, performance and queer theory, with a focus on concepts developed by authors such as Judith Butler, Paul B. Preciado and Jack Halberstam, whose writings deal with the social construction of gender and the possibility of deconstructing it through performative practices that are placed at the margins of the visible and the conforming, such as the drag practice. La Diamond, with her theatrical and impeccable looks, does not just represent a feminine aesthetic; she continuously destabilizes it, pushes it to its limits, reconstructs it, giving body to what Butler calls “the subversive parody of gender,” and transforming each appearance into a political act of resistance and visibility. The exhibit will be divided into fluid thematic sections, without a linear hierarchy, so as to foster a spatial experience that reflects the fluid and stratified nature of the queer subject. Rome, although a European capital and a city with a rich history of alterity and dissidence, has never hosted such an event and according to preliminary research conducted between the public and cultural operators there is a widespread and passionate interest and curiosity on the possibility of using drag as an exhibition artistic practice, not confined to the stage but valued as a living archive, an object of art and a critical tool, capable of speaking to an intergenerational and multidisciplinary audience. DIAMOD DUST  offers the unique opportunity to reflect on crucial themes of contemporary life – identity, representation, power, marginality – through a visual and performative language that subverts the boundaries between art, fashion, activism and subjectivity, giving the city a space for radical thinking and imagination, where the queer body becomes a device of freedom.