Sciara – Prima c’agghiorna: a theater performance at CIMA
May 01, 2024, 07:00 PM - 08:00 PM
by Luana Rondinelli
Directed by Giovanni Carta
With Luana Rondinelli and I Musicanti (Gregorio Caimi – chitarra, Enzo Toscano – violoncello, Debora Messina – singer)
Production I Musicanti
Running Time 73 min
The compelling human and judicial story of Francesca Serio, the first woman to denounce the mafia and mother of Salvatore Carnevale, the trade unionist barbarously killed by the mafia on May 16, 1955.
IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUPERTITLES
General Admission: Free
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English translation and English supertitles have been provided by Alice Amodeo and Alessandro Barbera (translation), Teresa Cassi and Valentina Somaschini (supertitles), students of Civica Scuola Interpreti e Traduttori Altiero Spinelli – Milano as part of a tutored educational program led by In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY.
About the performers:
Luana Rondinelli is an actress, playwright and director. Born in Rome and raised in Marsala, she graduated from the theater school of the Municipality of Marsala, directed by maestro Michele Perriera. She continues her training at “Ribalte”, the acting school led by Enzo Garinei and participates in multiple laboratories. In 2011 she founded the Accura Teatro company and is an author-actress and director of Taddrarite: a play against violence against women, winner of the critics’ prize at the international contest Etica in Atto 2013, and of the Rome Fringe Festival 2014 for best show and dramaturgy. The show was then performed in the USA at the San Diego International Fringe Festival 2016, and at “In Scena! Italian Theater Festival” 2015 in New York. She obtained other awards for Giacominazza, a text she wrote and acted, awarded as best original writing at the national theater festival Riflessi di Catania, and for which she was later awarded best character actor and best dramaturgy at the City of Leonforte Award; and for A Testa Sutta written for actor Giovanni Carta, obtaining the Fersen Prize for dramaturgy in the same year in which she was part of the jury of the Mario Fratti Prize of New York. These successes anticipate the long work carried out on the writing and creation of Penelope – The Odyssey Is Female, which was awarded the 2018 Anima Mundi Prize for dramaturgy female, assigned to Rondinelli at the Piccolo Teatro Grassi in Milan, before her summer debut on the stage of the Dionysiaca of the Calatafimi Segesta Festival. In the summer of 2019, the Teatro Stabile of Catania commissioned her to write a text for 350th anniversary since the largest eruption of Etna: ETerNA a’ vucca l’amma directed by Nicola Alberto Orofino. In January 2020, she directed three renowned actresses Donatella Finocchiaro, Claudia Potenza and Antonia Truppo, in the new version of Taddrarite for which she was awarded a special mention for theater at the Prize Aphrodite. She also directed Jerico Innocenza Rosa starring actress Valeria Solarino. Luana Rondinelli is also the author of and performer in the show Sciara prima c’agghiorna inspired by Franco Blandi’s book Francesca Serio, the mother with I Musicanti directed by Giovanni Carta, produced by Gregorio Caimi.
The group I Musicanti was started by Gregorio Caimi, a Sicilian guitarist born in Marsala, on the western tip of Sicily. Land of wind and salt which geographically belongs to the Euro-continent, but which is just over a hundred kilometers from the North African coasts. The Arab influence can be read in the very name of Marsala, which derives from: marsa “port” and āliyy “large”, a legacy of the Islamic period. This African, Arab and Mediterranean proximity in a broader sense means that Marsala has been a “port” in which different people, cultures, religions and traditions have continuously mixed and amalgamated. The essence of this flavorful mix, this embrace of flavors and stories, of melodies and stories, of movements and visions find fulfillment in the art of “I Musicanti”. In 2002, Gregorio brought together a group of Sicilian musicians with different training, musical culture and characteristics, once again mixing sensitivity and stories that gave life to “I Musicanti”. Their music expertly mixes the Sicilian musical tradition with those coming from different countries of the Mediterranean and Africa, giving life to an intense and rich style, capable of speaking to the depths of the human soul, to involve and excite, especially when performed live. “I Musicanti” represent an example of a mix of musical styles, modern sounds and instruments, archaic musical minds. Having performed for over twenty years, they have accomplished an artistic maturation that from ethno folk has reached, thanks also to the artistic partnership with the composer and arranger Alfredo Giammanco, the modern and global sounds of world music. This is precisely the field of research of “I Musicanti”: making the Mediterranean tradition one’s own and at the same time bringing together the different experiences (jazz, rock, folk, etc.) of the musicians who are part of it, aiming for universality of the message, without ever losing sight of the identity. That of “I Musicanti” is therefore a project of folk music projected into the contemporary world.
About In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY:
In 2013 Kairos Italy Theater, the preeminent Italian theater company in New York City, together with the Italian KIT Italia, created In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, the first Italian theater festival to take place in all five New York City boroughs and beyond. The festival’s first edition was part of the 2013 Year of Italian Culture in the United States and it was supported by the Embassy of Italy in DC and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU that, soon after, became one of the organizers. The festival has since become an annual event. www.inscenany.com
