II OPEN MEETING IN MONTEGRANARO (June 2011)

On the occasion of the Open Street Festival in Montegranaro, programmed in the ambit of Veregrastreet Festival, on June 25th the Open Street Forum held an international meeting , focused on theme "The Urban Show in the Open City".

The meeting was attended by numerous Italian and foreign operators: the mayor of Montegranaro, Mr. Gastone Gismondi, and Giuseppe Nuciari, representatives of project leader; Rosalba Ortenzi, counselor of Marche Region; Mario Andrenacci, president of ANCI (National Association of Municipalities) Marche; Guglielmo Massucci, Assessor for Tourism, province of Fermo; Graziano Di Battista, councilor for culture of Montegranaro; Gigi Russo, President of F.N.A.S.; Alessio Michelotti, director of F.N.A.S.; Gabriele Koch, art director of La Strada Festival - Bremen (DE); Ewa Salamon, City Council of Gdansk (PL); Bourdereau Laurent, Conseil Général de l'Essonne (FR); Marta Almirall – event coordinator for City of Barcelona (ES); Al Seed, Art director of Conflux Festival - Glasgow (UK); Jean Felix Tirtiaux, Art director of Namur en Mai - Namur (BE); Alessandro Serena Ass.Circo e Dintorni (IT); Boris Vecchio, Art Director of Circumnavigando Festival - Genova (IT); Wanda Circus counselor of F.N.A.S.; Fabrizio Gavosto, Art Director of Mirabilia Festival - Fossano (IT); Sergio Aguirre and Manola Nifosi, Art Directors of Lugliobambino Festival - Campi Bisenzio (IT); Rada Nimmrichter and Florian Puschmann, University of Bremen, Roberto Leopardi, Silvia Criscuoli and Marta De Bastiani, for Open Street Coordination / F.N.A.S.

After the welcome greetings of Mr.Gastone Gismondi, Mayor of Montegranaro, Open Street project leader, Mr. Giuseppe Nuciari, artistic director of local Veregrastreet Festival, expressed in broad terms the issues to be discussed during meeting, in particular to understand as the presence of street arts can influence the life of the city from the perspective of social relationships, increasing tourism and a new way for citizens to interact with the city as a whole.

OPEN FESTIVALS 2011: Many shows around Europe!

Awaiting the 2011 showcase, a glance to the excellent results of first edition

In the very moment we had closed the first edition of OSS, we had been asked "how much" we could obtain out of such an impressive work, in terms of performances of all artists and companies attended, scheduled by art operators for the next season. Talking to operators used to stroll Europe attending to international showcases, we were ready to be pessimistic: we met art operators who told us of how little they were able to find even in occasion of huge showcases, and how often they returned home with maybe one / two good performances booked out of hundreds of proposals. And us? What to say about our showcase, organized with few funds in a couple of months, its program unusally to be decided online by all art operators, and based just on the tremendous effort typical of all first editions of any event: could we really give something more to European artists?... Trying to find an answer, we thought to (another!) new initiative, something we believe was never been implemented by any other showcase: the data collection of shows programmed for 2011 events by operators attended to showcase, and make this report public. It sorted out a truly encouraging result we can be proud of: 35 operators of 12 EU Countries have programmed over 120 performances of solo artists or companies from Europe and not only.The data only include operators and artists who were present in Fermo, without taking in consideration the "online" showcase: the collection of over 250 videos often used by many operators to find new proposals to be programmed in their events. Out of it, thanks to the visibility of videos on Open Street website, we have info that also further companies were programmed for 2011 events. A good wish for next edition!

Full recapitulation of programmed shows is available here:

SHOW PROGRAMMED 2011

Discovering street show in Greece

A new direction for Open Street Cooperation

The network of contacts developed within the Open Street led to the approach with the world of street performance in Greece. In October 2010, the project had invited Nikos Chatzipapas, responsible for the Helix Theatre Company, to the Open International Showcase of Fermo. He is also Artistic Director of the main event of street art in Greece, the 'International Street Theatre Festival in Athens, at third edition in 2011. The event program, besides several shows performed on street and small theatres, foresees a showcase for Greek artists, as well as some prizes awarded to participating companies. On the occasion of Athens Festival, scheduled from 30th June to 4th July , its artistic director has invited a representative of Open Street to attend to the events. It has been a very positive moment of mutual exchange of experiences and proposals.

The street performance is not yet developed in Greece as in other European countries: there are not many events, so most companies are primarily dedicated to other forms of entertainment. Despite the current difficult socio-economic situation in Greece, or perhaps because of this, many artists turn now their attention to the street show, view they see as a new opportunity to work and expressive possibility. However, the training opportunities available in Greece hardly allow artists to move towards the street show, so they often attend to workshops and schools abroad. Likewise, the organization of events is very difficult, because local administrators have no practical examples of implementation.

The festival of Athens, in fact, can be considered the most important reference point in this ambit, both for artists and operators. The active collaboration of the Open Street project has resulted in an award of prizes at the closing ceremony of festival, which was held at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation in the presence of the chairman of the cultural organization for City of Athens Mrs. Anna Filini: after careful consideration of the Jury Committee, the Greek company “Action & Play”(see photo), a young and dynamic company of dance-theatre and physical theatre willing to work much and learn, has been selected for the production of a brand new show to be conceived for street and to be presented as European premiere in summer 2012 in Italy, at the Festival "Veregrastreet" Montegranaro, seat of Open Street project leader. Meanwhile, Open Street project will propose the show to other European festivals, aiming to organize a small European tour. Shortly the company will start the show staging.

The coordinator of the Open Street attended Athens took the opportunity to invite Nikos Chatzipapas to the appointment scheduled in the ambit of Festival “La Strada” in Bremen (DE), organized by the German co-organizer of our project. The Director of Helix Theatre will take in consideration to start a project, in collaboration with artists, companies and Greek operators, leading to the founding of the first Greek national federation for the street show. Despite the commitments of the company's summer program, someone responsible for their structure will be in Bremen as representative of the Hellenic street show.

OPEN FESTIVAL IN MONTEGRANARO (IT)

From June 20th to 26th in the frame of the thirteenth edition of Veregra STREET

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At the launch the second edition of OPEN Festival to be held in the frame Veregra Street, the appointment with the street art opens the summer season every year in the province of Fermo. The program is very rich and varied. It is expected the presence of companies from all over the world: Mongolia, India, Ethiopia, Australia, Argentina, Bulgaria, France, Spain, Switzerland, England, Germany. Many countries of the European network of productions that have been invited to the Festival in the framework of cooperation established through OPEN STREET. And a good portion of these participated in the international showcase held in October between Fermo and Montegranaro.

GENERAL PROGRAMME


Companies selected by the first OPEN INTERNATIONAL SHOWCASE

Benjamin Delmas

Ambaradan

Envol Distratto

Lullo Mosso

Dolly Bomba

This Maag

Gambe in Spalla

Teatro dei Venti

Cie La Tal

Baccalà Clown

European artists, performing in Italy seems to like it very much, especially in the Marches region. In this area, those coming from outside, can not miss a special and unique dimension in which the relationship between spectacle and spectator becomes magic. Frame made of a natural scenic villages spectacular in cultural goods scattered castles, churches and places of great architectural merit. An environment still intact and wild. The sea, good food and the purity of the Marches, make the experience of doing the show in Le Marche a thrilling experience and often overshadows the efforts of transcontinental travel.

The relationship between spectacle and the urban context is central to the OPEN meeting of this year, scheduled on 24 and 25 June at the Horizon Hotel of Montegranaro.

The creation of an international debate, the comparison between the legal orders of the countries of the union, among the urban models and cultural policies adopted in different countries, is the starting point for stimulating administrators and the industry toward the adoption of good practices in the organization of events and administration of cities on the continent. This path can not be undertaken only at the national or local, but increasingly needs to be addressed at Community level, and this is the fundamental goal of the meeting.

For all information on this event visit the special page.

OPEN STREET MEETS SMART EU

On June 10 in Brussels, Alessio Michelotti from OPEN EU OFFICE and Gabriele Koch from GERMAN OPEN FORUM, they took part in the reflexion group meeting held in Brussels by SMART EU, whose theme was "support on creative professionals in Europe". The participants were experts came from 10 different European countries, for a comparison of experiences on the sector situation in their countries.

The creativity sector in the art and in the performing arts fields, is in vertical growth in Europe, but the social security systems in member states have not yet been able to take the peculiarities of these activities, and sometimes fail to provide to creative workforce nor the rightful guarantees, nor dignified treatment.

This gap is particularly targeted at the independent performing art and freelance artists and then to a large extent even at street art. One of the aims of OPEN STREET is to activate new services for street artists in Europe, and from this point of view in the professional support services, employment counseling and tax assistance, represent some of the most popular requests that must be take into account.