The appointment with the Festival of Landscape Cultures is renewed again this year, in its third edition, organized and promoted by the Municipality of San Severo (Foggia) under the auspices of the Apulia Region and involving San Severo and the towns of the region Alto Tavoliere delle Puglie, San Paolo di Civitate and Serracapriola, along the Tratturo Magno L’Aquila-Foggia, will take part.
From Thursday 9 to Sunday 12 May, four days in the name of transhumance as a search for human and sacred signs, memories, gestures and steps, which will take place on Thursday 9 May from 6 p.m. at the Galleria dei Celestini of San Severo will culminate in the great celebration of the “Night of the Transhumanists, between human nature and landscape”, an event with great music and poetry that will commemorate the resettlement of the Transhumanists. A legendary emigrant journey along the Apennine ridge between serenades and ballads, lullabies and love tarantulas, frenetic rhythms and jumps, always careful to involve the audience and let them “run” to the music.
The rhythms, sounds, songs and dances of the tradition with the voice and accordion of Ambrogio Sparagna and the music of the multi-instrumentalist Erasmo Treglia (torototela, hurdy-gurdy, ciaramella), with the extraordinary participation of one of the most important harpists in the world Vincenzo Zitello protagonist of the Project “Europe is a sound” together with Alessia Salvucci, versatile artist, musician, singer, dancer, and the verses of the poet Davide Rondoni, artistic director of the festival. A rhythmic dialogue between harps and drums, bearers of myths, stories, incantations, fairy tales.
“The event in May, the festival, the second “Night of the Transhumants”, develops the long work on the mosaic of San Severo, carried out in the belief that the landscape is the ultimate result of the relationship between man/nature, human nature and nature is nature of the environment. Landscape is a cultural phenomenon and needs to be studied and promoted. “This year, the presence of guest artists of great value and valuable debates will make an original contribution outside the simplifications and usual schemes,” explains the artistic director Davide Rondoni, poet and writer “The landscape is life and cannot be codified, it is the terrain of different visions and languages from a cultural, social and therefore economic perspective.”
The “Festival of Landscape Cultures – Mosaico di San Severo 2024” award goes to Federico Quaranta, popular face of the Rai television shows Il Provinciale, Linea Verde and historic voice of Decanter, the cult radio show on Rai Radio2. “There are travelers who carry the world in their own eyes and travelers who also carry it in the eyes of others.” Federico Quaranta is one of them. Known to a wide audience as a radio presenter and television traveler, in recent years he has devoted particular attention to the less obvious, lateral, provincial Italy, showing that the relationship with the landscape is always a central problem of human existence and culture in the interpretation of today’s world” , we read in the motivation.
The awards ceremony will take place on Friday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m. at the Galleria dei Celestini Corte Teatro, with the participation of Fabio Mucilli for the Municipality of San Severo and the poet Enrico Fraccacreta. In the evening the show event “Musicians and Traditions” with the critic Paolo Lagazzi, Frak, DJ and composer, and the musician Salvatore De Iure.
At the festival, on Friday May 10, at 6 p.m., at the Galleria dei Celestini in San Severo, the authors’ meeting “The poets snatch the last word from war” will take place with the critic Paolo Lagazzi and the poets Enrico Fraccacreta, Alessia Iuliano and Antonio Bux is one of the finalists of the Strega Poetry Prize 2024 with his latest book “Mappe senza una terra” (RP libri).
The Festival of Landscape Cultures reaffirms itself as an annual reference event for the Puglia region and the Tavoliere area. An exhibition that becomes an active platform to share, reflect and plan together the future of the landscape and the territory in an increasingly sustainable way. From these premises comes the Memorandum of Understanding, which will be signed at the opening of the exhibition on Thursday May 9th at 6.30 p.m. in the Galleria dei Celestini, and which establishes the institutional collaboration between the municipalities of San Severo (Leader) and San Paolo di Civitate and Serracapriola are responsible for organizing the next editions of the festival.
The program is full of meetings, workshops and seminars on the connection between landscape and renewable energy, the enhancement of “ecological corridors”, sheep trails and streams. On the afternoons of Thursday 9th and Friday 10th May from 3pm to 6pm. Workshop in the neighborhood of the Galleria dei Celestini, appointment for the design workshop “Mosaic of San Severo: from sheep path/path to sheep path/territory”. Coordinated by Antonio Leone, University of Salento; Paolo Colarossi, National Institute of Urban Planning; Domenico Potenza, University of Chieti-Pescara and Mauro Iacoviello, representative of the National River Contracts Table. Designers, students and associations take part in the working groups. Friday May 10th, from 9 a.m. in the conference room of the Galleria dei Celestini, presentation of the feasibility study “The landscapes of Tratturo Magno: from the sheep path/path to the sheep path/territory”, coordinated by Fabio Mucilli of the Municipality of San Severo, with the participation of the Gal Daunia Rurale 2020, associations and designers. The meeting “Landscape enhancement and energy production from renewable sources” will then take place to analyze risks and development opportunities for the multifunctional agricultural park “Mosaico”.
The festival dedicates the weekend to discovery and exploration of the territory. Saturday, May 11, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., the excursion “Mosaic of San Severo – ecological corridors in the Radicosa and Venolo streams”: the guided tour of the new Boschetto on the Radicosa and the source of the Venolo on the L’Aquila sheep path – Foggia, together with designers, students, associations and trekking enthusiasts. In the afternoon, from 6 p.m., “Let’s go, it’s time to go hiking”, appointment in Serracapriola, in the Doganella area of the Passo San Giacomo, for a walk on the sheep path accompanied by the music and dances of the Agnone ethnic group and the stories of the writer Nicola Mastronardi. A visit to the chapel of Santa Maria del Monte and the church of Sant’Anna is planned. At the stands in the Belvedere of the Giro Esterno, all participants can get to know, taste and enjoy the typical products of the region.
Sunday, May 12, at 8 a.m., in the municipality of San Paolo di Civitate, in the Spiavento – San Severo area, the “Hike on the Tratturo Regio L’Aquila-Foggia” begins, covering a route of about 10 km along the Roman Way to the Madonna of the Bridge, with stops by artists and musicians (I Dromedari, Cantori di Civitate, brass band) and tasting of pastoral specialties, as well as guided tours of the tavern and the sheep trail monuments along the way.
The Mosaic Festival of Landscape Cultures of San Severo is promoted and organized by the Municipality of San Severo under the auspices of the Puglia Region, under the artistic direction of the poet and writer Davide Rondoni.
