When: Friday, July 8 – Saturday, July 9, 2022
Where: Old Town and widespread places
Public info: +39 370 3685093 – spettatore@sillaba.org
link & official program: www.sponzfest.it/2022
The day on Saturday 9 will close with ROLLING SPONZ REVIEW, a concert by Vinicio Capossela and several guests, at Pietra dell’Uso in Sogliano al Rubicone (FC), surrounded by nature.
To attend the July 9 concert: https://www.liveticket.it/caposselasogliano
SPONZ PREVIEW 2022
In Sogliano the preview of the 10th edition of the Sponz Fest directed by Vinicio Capossela
After the 2021 edition in La Pietra di Bismantova (RE), the Sponz Fest Preview lands in Romagna. Friday, July 8 and Saturday, July 9 is scheduled in Sogliano al Rubicone, the festival conceived and directed by Vinicio Capossela.
Sponz Fest is an event planned as it is every summer in Alta Irpinia, which has always chosen to focus on the concept of emptiness as a resource. The emptiness of lands and countries possible laboratory of another possible world. The focal point of the 2022 edition of the Sponz Fest will be the land, the cultivation and culture of the land, which draws musically on the folkloric heritage and brings back to the center of the discourse the periphery of the countries, and sustainability. Italy is a country of countries emerged from the sea of land culture. Intensive agriculture, land consumption, climate change and depopulation of villages are profoundly changing the natural and human landscape of the world we live in. The Sponz preview thus anticipates the 10th edition of the Festival whose title is “Coultura. For a different culture/culture of the earth.
“For ten years we have been sponzing in the interior lands of upper Irpinia and its surroundings. Since last year we have also started to sponzare in other inland areas. In 2021 under the Pietra di Bismantova (Castelnovo ne’ Monti – RE) and this year at the foot of the Tosco Romagnola ridge where we will cross the Rubicon in Sogliano, a town that with affectionate and circumstantial participation has welcomed the sponzante spirit in the estates of its municipality.
I use the verb, rather than the noun, because Sponz Fest, (which also began as an experience that cannot be separated from its original territory), more than a festival is a spirit, a way of experiencing mobile forms of community. The verb sponzare comes from the action of the sponge that, once soaked, softens and regenerates. So it is the group body that from being sponged loses rigidity, shape and edges, and by absorbing dilates and welcomes and puts back into circulation. We try to solicit this spirit by means of music, but also by food, drink, dance, and above all by meeting in intersection with the natural landscape and of human nature.
Encounter is always the pearl, the fruit of knowledge. From year to year we try to direct the art of encounter in some thematic direction. For this 2022 we set the theme of cultivating, in the dual meaning of culture and cultivation. Hence the O that meets the U, as Jacopo Leone has graphically declined in his own right, becoming a kind of horned pictogram that is the symbol of the edition. A mobile edition that will subsequently also touch Irpinia and Basilicata.
To reason about culture and cultivation is to reason about what we are made of, what we eat, and what we grow. About our relationship with the earth, with the earth’s resources and also with our own. About what we consume and what we leave behind. About what we cultivate and what we corrupt.
On July eight and nine in Sogliano we meet a little bit of experience on the ground, and a little bit of folk roots, dance music, dialect poetry, we meet those who study and those who experience on these issues. And then the music, the Rolling Sponz concert is a kind of mobile circus that brings to the stage a little bit of the elements that have formed the soul of Sponz for years: Peppe Leone, Giovannangelo De Gennaro, Victor Herrero, the band. Guests from the wilds of Irpinia are Friestk, a young band that has been re-zipping the ground for a few years now, starting with old masters like Matteo Salvatore to the renewed language of their compositions. Plus heroes and friends of the genius loci such as the Great John de Leo and frontier traveler Don Antonio Gramentieri.
In the spirit of the Fest, which has never resolved itself into one stage, the municipality has made available different places, at different times, covering the entire day and night. Places also unusual and laborious to return to use. A bridge between the experiences of Romagna and Irpinia will come to us from the prying eye of Rimini photographer Chico De Luigi, who was the agitator and soul of a couple of editions and who will bring to Sogliano a little of his “Faces from Sponz.” So thank you and indeed Thank You to everyone. See you in Sogliano.” Vinicio Capossela
PREVIEW IN SOGLIANO
There will be two days in Sogliano and they will feature conversations, hikes, concerts and readings.
On Friday, July 8 in the heart of the Rubicon Valley town from 7 p.m. until late at night with dialect poetry, music, songs and folk dances from Romagna, while on Saturday, July 9 from the morning the protagonists of the event will be the agricultural productions of the area with an organic market. Among the market stalls will be tastings of organic and typical products, freshly picked fruits and vegetables, wine and oil fresh and aged cheeses, the flours of ancient grains, and beers. A day that will be shot through with conversations related to the importance of organic in the area. The “cultivation” relationship with the land will also be highlighted in Sogliano. From the different ways of cultivation, production and market to the synergistic garden and permaculture. Topics that will be the focus of the discussion to emphasize how the way we cultivate and consume can tell us a lot about our idea of the world. A different agri-culture can be a primary resource of inland lands. Saturday’s day will close with the Rolling Sponz Review, a concert by Vinicio Capossela accompanied by guests, all of which will take place near the Pietra dell’Uso Church, a place beloved by Tonino Guerra and recalled in several poems, now undergoing redevelopment by the municipality.
The program includes trekking and hiking among the wooded trails around the village.
The Sponz Festival Preview in Sogliano, under the artistic direction of Vinicio Capossela, is organized with the contribution of the Municipality of Sogliano, curated by Sillaba Coop. while the 10th edition of Sponz Fest is an event produced by the Sponziamoci Association, La Cupa and International Music and Arts.
