Premise
The Aeolian Islands, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are known to Italian and international tourism thanks to the "War of the Volcanoes". Which is how the dispute between the two first women of cinema Anna Magnani and Ingrid Bergman was defined by the international press in the 50s. The two women competed for the love of the great Italian director Roberto Rossellini during the shooting of the movie "Stromboli terra di Dio”(“Stromboli, land of God”).
The media appeal and the curiosity to know those very particular places described in the films, one shot in Stromboli by Roberto Rossellini and the other in Vulcano by William Dieterle, has given rise to a tourist flow that has brought the Aeolian Archipelago and its seven beautiful islands. In 2002, the Aeolian Archipelago had welcomed about 3,000,000 visitors, a quarter of the entire number of visitors in Sicily! Stromboli, one of the most active volcanoes in Europe, which the volcanologist Haroun Tazieff has defined as the "friendly volcano", is a perfect place that can act as a driving force for a cultural promotion plan that affects the Aeolian Archipelago and the entire Region of Sicily.
The activities
The activities which the Pro Loco “Amo Stromboli” intends to promote during the year are the following:
EASTER FESTIVITIES
"I love Stromboli" proposes the creation of a Cooking School, aimed at lovers of the island, for the rediscovery of Strombolian culinary traditions and more. During the Easter period, the women of Stromboli - in person or via video calls - will guide those interested in the creation of typical Strombolian and Sicilian sweets.
The vastedduzzi
These are typical Christmas sweets, lace resembling pastry stuffed with raisins and vincotto (cooked wine) or almond paste.
The cudduri
They are typical Sicilian Easter sweets.
According to tradition, the grandmothers prepared one for each grandson. It was a party to receive them, especially if they were adorned with chocolates. Such was the beauty of these sweets that it was almost a shame to eat them!
Grandmothers weren't the only ones giving these sweets. Fiances also brought them as gifts to the beloved women and wives prepared them for their husbands.
The ingredients used were poor raw materials, including water, flour, and eggs. Flavors of the past that warm the minds of those who taste them.
JUNE
Eco Logic Theater
In 2021, from June 26 to July 5, the eighth consecutive edition of "La Festa del Teatro Eco Logico" ( "The party of the Eco Logic Theater") will take place on the island of Stromboli, under the artistic direction of Alessandro Fabrizi and Hossein Taheri and with the advice of Giorgio Rossi for the dance and Gianluca and Raffaella Missioni for music.
The Eco Logico Theater Festival is a set of theater, music, dance, training, and popular scientific and literary events offered to the public free of charge and, above all, without the use of electricity neither for the lighting nor for the amplification. The event takes place every year, since 2013, at the beginning of the summer season and lasts three weeks.
Thanks to the renunciation of electric lighting, electric sound amplification, electronic and digital effects in live performance, the Festa regenerates an intimate dialogue with the environment and offers itself as a unique model worldwide, of exemplary practices of respect for the environment, sustainability, and energy saving.
The Festival favors the development of qualified and permanent tourism where the performances, spread over the entire territory of the island and designed to enhance the beauty and uniqueness of the places, offer the tourist paths to rediscover the environment in which it is immersed, stimulating connections between local tradition, classical culture, and the contemporary world.
As written by the critic and journalist Graziano Graziani, "the Festival traces a map of the island following paths of music, dance, theater, and poetry. [...] following the appointments it is possible to visit places and landscapes that are not always accessible: not only natural places such as beaches and caves, or public places such as church parvises but also private houses and terraces that open their doors to the festival and to the people who attend it "(The Towner, 14.07.2016 http://www.thetowner.com/it/sotto-il-vulcano-stromboli)
Non a caso, la Festa del Teatro Eco Logico è stata definita una “eccellenza italiana” (La Repubblica-Ambiente del 25.06.2015) e ha ricevuto per l’edizione 2014 la Medaglia del Presidente della Repubblica.
Every year the Artistic Direction proposes a theme to artists, journalists and scholars, inviting them to join existing projects or to create ad hoc projects for the Festival. National and international artists participated in the Eco Logico Theater Festival (among them: Bruce Myers, Motta, Isabella Ferrari, Anna Bonaiuto, Iaia Forte, Riccardo Biseo, Maya Sansa, Isabella Ragonese, Nada, Ivano Battiston, Ken Cheeseman, Marie Ohrn, Guappecartò, Cristina Donadio, Angela Finocchiaro, and many more). For the artists, the Festival is an opportunity to start projects on the island that find their way and success in the most canonical circuits of Italian and European theaters. Including the "De Revolutionibus" curated by Carullo-Minasi, born from a mise en espace of Leopardi's "Copernicus" during the 2014 Festival; the show "Ammore nun è Ammore" by Lino Musella, stimulated by the Shakespearean celebrations of the 2016 Festival and born in the churchyard of the Church of San Bartolo, which brought Musella to the nomination "UBU" as best actor; the study of the Swedish artistic performance Marie Ohrn dedicated to the protagonist of Roberto Rossellini's movie "Stromboli" in 2014; the residence of the "Toufé" group led by Lavinia Savignoni in 2017 and that of Dante Antonelli's collective "Sch.Lab" in 2014.
An event of active involvement of the public that has characterized numerous editions is that of "Participatory Reading", where the island's community gives voice to local testimonies and stories related to the events of the Festival. We recall, as an example, in 2014, the participatory reading of artists and the public of the anthropologist, Macrina Marilena Maffei's book "The dance of the Witches". In 2015, that of the book by Fabio Famularo "Il Bagaglio in fondo al Mare" (""Baggage at the bottom of the sea"), which was attended by Strombolans, vacationers, and professional actors (including Anna Bonaiuto, Paolo Zuccari, and Angela Finocchiaro); and in 2017, 2018, 2019 editions, the collaboration with “Doctors without Borders” and the reading of testimonies and experiences of conflicts and crises.
The most characteristic moment of the Festival is undoubtedly the daily appointment with "Chiacchiere da Bar" ("bar chatter"), where the breakfast experience becomes a unique opportunity for the public of a direct confrontation with the artists of the previous day's events. It is possible to exchange ideas and impressions on the performed shows or ask questions about the upcoming ones.
The Festival enhances the involvement and precious collaboration of many local realities, such as volcanological guides, with excursions at a protected altitude of scientific dissemination and site-specific performance. By way of example, see the collaboration with the group of archaeologists led by Sara Levi (University of Modena) and Marco Bettelli (National Research Council) for the realization of an event on Ulysses' travels from the Odyssey; as well as the beach cleaning activity launched in 2019 which involves both artists and tourists.
A significant section of the Festival is dedicated to the world of childhood. It includes awareness-raising workshops on ecological issues (alternative energies, cleaning the seas, differentiation of waste) that produce objects with recycled materials and small public performative results, created in previous editions in collaboration with Enel Green Power and Aeolian Islands Preservation Fund at the care of qualified operators in that sector, such as Fiona Sansone, Chicca Cosentino, Giulia Bornacin, Emanuele Di Giacomo.
For adults, the Festival also offers specialization seminars on natural voice according to the Linklater Method, aimed at actors, singers, and teachers, with the patronage of the National Academy of Dramatic Art "Silvio d'Amico", curated by Leonardo Gambardella, conducted by professors of international level (among them, in the past years: Ken Cheeseman from Emerson College, Boston; Natsuko Ohama from the University of South California and Oliver Mannel from the University of Zurich).
The Seminar "Voce e Testo" ("Voice and Text") has been taking place on the island of Stromboli since 2005 and has seen the participation of actors, singers, and writers from Australia, New Zealand, England, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, the United States, and Turkey. The seminar for Voice and Text - Linklater Method will be led by Leonardo Gambardella, Susan Main, and Manuela Cherubin this year.
“IL BALCONE DELLA SPOSA - AMARSI A STROMBOLI” - “THE BRIDE'S BALCONY - LOVE IN STROMBOLI”.
This project includes a selection of excerpts from Fabio Famularo's books set in different places on the island, places that become stages of a literary journey. At each stage a passage from the book will be read and the reading will be "participatory". Readers will be both professional actors and members of the public, tourists, and Strombolans. The Swedish playwright Mia Tornqvist will take care of this initiative with the help of Beatrice Fassi and the help of the artistic directorate of the Festival for the choice of places and for the definition of the itinerary. Before each reading, the established place will be explored by the public also through a sensory experience led by Patrizia Menichelli of the Teatro de Los Sentidos in Barcelona.
“LUOGHI DI VERSI” - "PLACES OF VERSES"
This project, on the other hand, is inspired by a book of images and poems resulting from the collaboration of the art historian Tomaso Montanari and the poet Franco Marcoaldi and published by the Treccani Encyclopedia.
In this case, Marcoaldi and Montanari will choose three places in Stromboli to which they will accost a poem. Perhaps, this year, it will be Dante's, to celebrate the 700th anniversary of his death.
JULY
Dinner with the stars
Film artists, theatrical actors, and other people in the show business, always very present in our Islands, together with Sicilian chefs and cooks, will try their hand at the preparation of typical Sicilian and Aeolian cuisine.
The dishes made will be presented in banquets prepared along the Via Marina of Stromboli, so that tourists and residents can taste them.
Author's Concert
Aeolian and Sicilian artists will lead tourists and residents to the rediscovery of folk and traditional songs of other times.
Traditional games
On the occasion of the patronal feast, the rediscovery of traditional games is proposed.
Artistic-recreational workshop for children and teenagers
The project includes a series of meetings on the island of Stromboli in the summer months. The aim of the project is to creatively stimulate children, so as to motivate them in practical-manual activities that allow them to interact positively with their environment and at the same time help them develop skills and abilities.
Painting workshops
Drawings on the island of Stromboli, participation is of a maximum of 10 people at a time. Materials: paper, brushes, and tempera paints.
Creative recycling workshops using natural elements: sand, stones, shells, etc….The activity will take place directly on the beach. Materials: brushes, vinyl glue, scissors, twine.
Museum of the sea
The waste from the beach is collected and an exhibition will be created with the collected plastic. The exhibition will be set up near the port, in such a way as to be clearly visible and sensitize incoming tourists.
AUGUST
Volcanos Marathon
This foot race, now in its 24th edition, takes place on the street circuit of the island of Stromboli and has an annual participation of about 300/400 people. Tourists and residents, aged between 4 and 80, participate every year.
Regatta
The regatta takes place every year at the end of August in collaboration with the Stromboli BLU & Co. Association. It is a regatta of traditional boats of the Aeolian fishermen "u vuzzu" with four oars in the water and three sailors on board. The boats do not exceed 7 meters in length.
The regatta recalls the ancient maritime traditions of the Aeolian Islands, in particular those of Stromboli and Salina. The two islands were the main sources of recruitment of sailors by the shipowners of Southern Italy for the merchant ships that traveled from Sicily to the coasts of the cities of Northern Italy and the Atlantic cities of France. The race takes place over a distance of one mile, on the stretch of sea between the rock of "Strombolicchio" and the beach of Scari.
SEPTEMBER
The Arches of the Volcano
A concert of strings (violins, cellos, violas) to be held in the tiny port of Ginostra, called "u purtusu", which forms a natural amphitheater behind the town of Stromboli.
Spectators will be able to follow the concert seated on the steps leading to the village of Ginostra, the anchored fishing boats will act as torches and some torches will illuminate the sea at dusk (Ginostra faces west).
The Women of Wine
Women, the land, and the wine.
Today more and more women have become "ambassadors" of a product that is "sensorial" in Italy. A product that makes people appreciate the pleasures of life more and that reminds us of the places of origin, culture, strength, and energy that it manages to generate.
Projects
○ Proloco site;
○ Preparation of the site of the Proloco with the function of Infopoint for tourism promotion;
○ Organization of routes to promote tourism at low-altitude as an alternative to climbing the volcano, for a more eco-sustainable and intelligent tourism. Mapping of paths and consequent restoration proposal.
○ Educational activity related to the recognition of herbs and plants and bird watching during the period of ornithological migrations that affect the skies of Stromboli;
○ Traps construction school, where the island's fishermen teach children and teenagers how to build and repair traps, which are mainly used for shrimp and lobster fishing.
○ Fishing Net Repair School, where fishermen teach children and adolescents how they repair the nets;
○ Project to promote the breaking down of the digital divide, also making use of the governmental support of Agid.