Mercantia 2019 – Certaldo

The XXXII edition of Mercantia – International Festival of the Fourth Theater, scheduled in Certaldo (Florence) from Wednesday 10 to Sunday 14 July 2019 will be called “La Santa Allegria”.

“The Santa Allegria – explains the artistic director Alessandro Gigli, author of the homonymous poetic idea – means to exalt a binomial, that of sanctity and pleasure of living, which may seem a paradox, but that in the popular tradition sees these two opposites often manifest together. The feasts of the patron saint are an example: with processions and religious rituals on one side together with illuminations, fireworks, shows in the squares and food on the other. The film “La strada” by Federico Fellini tells the poetics of our festival well. The history of western theater perhaps starts from the sacred representations, from the rituals linked to the passing of time and its seasons, then passes through many paths and adjustments, also through the degeneration of bourgeois theater, to arrive at contemporary theater. Today, in its various expressions and representations, the theater affirms the need to recover rituality, the link with the popular festival but also with rituality and spirituality. “La Santa Allegria” speaks of what unites, that links man to heaven, to other men, to life in its many aspects “.

The artistic director anticipates news and confirmations of the next edition: “Many installations of the village will evoke the poetic idea with plays of light, large paintings by contemporary artists, games of mirrors, the imposing Udumbara flower placed on the tower of Boccaccio, rain of petals, soap bubbles, dancing spheres. There will be important street parades and we will try above all to laugh, because this also unites us and makes us human beings. Becoming buffoons, laughing and making people laugh is our little mission and we will do it “seriously” since the European Community has funded the “Mysteries and Drolls” project of which we are the leader: the European project on the reinterpretation of the languages ​​of medieval theater, of the arts giullaresche and on the forms of the sacred and of the histrionic, which brings to Certaldo shows in collaboration with Festival of Fools of Belfast (Northern Ireland), Gliwice (Poland), Teatre A of Lorrach (Germany), Tempus Fugit and Elche of Alicante ( Spain)”.

“In a world with too many walls and borders – concludes Alessandro Gigli – that divides good and bad, poor and rich, that isolates us in our ego proceeding by categories and fundamentalism, cultural hybridisation is a value, as are the contaminations of genres and artistic and cultural styles, because the truth is holy and joyful! ”And the first program previews will soon be available online.

Updates and info: www.mercantiacertaldo.it o www.facebook.com/mercantia