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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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The Sky Over Kibera (2019 film)

November 5, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

the-sky-over-kibera-foto-di-andrea-signori-2019-film

“THE SKY OVER KIBERA is an art film: it tells us about the ‘bringing to life’ of the Divine Comedy in the immense slum of Nairobi, Kibera, where the director has worked with 150 children and adolescents, reinventing Dante’s masterpiece in English and Swahili. And he does so with his poetic and visionary style, interweaving other images with the filming of the play, sequences shot specifically in the slum to carry out the alchemical operation of transforming theatre into cinema. Three teenagers from Nairobi offer face and voice to Dante, Virgil, and Beatrice: they are the guides that lead the viewer into the labyrinth of Kibera, where the ‘dark forest’ in which the poet is lost is more than just a metaphor: in Swahili, Kibera means ‘forest.’ Around them a chorus swarming with bodies recites the tumult of being both beasts and damned, thieves and murderers, devils and corrupt politicians and poets who indicate the ways of salvation: between songs and acting, frenetic races and wild dances, the 150 protagonists give life to a fresco full of moving poetry, further confirmation of the universality of Dante’s masterpiece.” [. . .]    —Teatro Delle Albe

View the trailer here.

Image credit Andrea Signori

Contributed by Silvia Valisa (Florida State University)

Categories: Performing Arts, Places
Tagged with: 2019, Beatrice, Dark Wood, Divine Comedy, Films, Kenya, Love that Moves the Sun and Other Stars, Movies, Nairobi, Theater, Virgil

Dante 700th London

September 10, 2021 By Professor Arielle Saiber


Visit the 3D exhibition here
“ma per trattar del ben ch’i vi trovai” Divina Commedia, Inferno Canto I
​

DANTE 700TH London
3rd – 30th September 2021
Dante Society London 22, Bryanston Mews West London W1H 2DD

Visits to the exhibition by appointment only. Contact us by mail.

The exhibition with the participation of a collective of artists from Italy, the United Kingdom, China and the United States of America will take place in London at the Dante Society London premises, during the month of September 2021. The artists accepted the invitation to explore and interpret Dante’s writing and its relevance in the 21st century, each with their own unique artistic brilliance. The original interpretations represent an exceptional panorama that celebrates Dante’s anniversary in a special manner and offers a contemporary perspective in the various artistic and multimedia representations.

The selected artists of Dante 700th London:
Bianca Froese-Acquaye, Despina Symeou, Emilio Guazzone, Francesco Filippini, Giuseppe Pipino, Iluà Hauck da Silva, Jackie Carter, Kat Mustatea, Laura Parker, Louise Marchal, Maurizio Coglia, Michela Papavassiliou, Paolo Rambelli, Rocco Epifanio, Shadi Almualem, Teresa Cecchi and la classe di chimica ITT ‘G.E.Montani, Ying Zheng.
Dante 700th London Prize Jury: Alexandra Lawrence, Dario Pisano, Patrizia Poggi.
Our most heartfelt thanks for supporting this initiative.

The winner of the exclusive interview granted by London One Radio, the first Italian radio in the United Kingdom is: Kat Mustatea
Awarded for Voidopolis – a digital performance about loss and memory currently unfolding on her Instagram feed @kmustatea

Categories: Music, Performing Arts, Visual Art & Architecture, Written Word
Tagged with: 2021, 700th anniversary, Digital Art, England, London, Painting, Performance Art, Poetry, Radio, Sculpture, Theater

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Season 13, Theatre Tricks (2012)

August 19, 2021 By Ezra Berman '23

“In the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 13 episode ‘Theatre Tricks,’ Dante’s Inferno was the chosen play of an interactive theatre group where an actress ended up raped on stage during the Second Circle (Lust).”    —Wikipedia

Categories: Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2012, Circles of Hell, Hell, Inferno, Lust, Second Circle, Television, Theater

“How the Passion of Hannibal Lecter Inspired a New Opera About Dante”

February 24, 2021 By Laura Chatellier, FSU '23

the-passion-of-hannibal-inspires-new-opera-about-dante-den-of-geek-2021

“When you hear the name Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a few things spring to mind—and none of them are likely to involve Italian poet Dante Alighieri or opera. Of course there’s good reason for this, with Lecter’s exotic cooking ingredients superseding his gentler affectations. But even so, when author Thomas Harris first imagined how the character might move in the wild for the novel Hannibal, it was with baroque glee he unleashed the doctor in Florence: Italy’s Renaissance city and Dante’s medieval stomping grounds.

“Director Ridley Scott similarly understood that secret recipe. His film version of Hannibal relishes every Italian colonnade Anthony Hopkins walks under, or the way the shadow of the statue of David casts darkness on its star’s face, often as he stands in the same spot where men were hanged or immolated centuries ago. In its better moments, Scott’s movie savors that this is a story about a devil who covets the divine; it delights in playing like an opera.

“Hence for the picture’s best sequence, the filmmakers commissioned a new ‘mini-opera,’ one that would for the first time put music to verses that Dante wrote more than 700 years ago. And in the decades since the movie’s release, those fleeting  minutes of music have blossomed into a real, full-fledged opera about to have its world premiere. Once again the doctor’s distinct tastes and influences appear singular within the realm of movie monsters.” [. . .]    –David Crow, Den of Geek, February 17, 2021.

Categories: Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2021, 700th anniversary, Divine Comedy, Italian, Operas, Performance Art, Theater, Vita Nuova

Tappeto Volante’s Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso

March 25, 2020 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

The theater troupe Tappeto Volante has staged multiple immersive, ambulatory performances of Dante’s canticles in different locations in the province of Salerno. The first, Inferno, was staged in the Grotte di Pertosa-Auletta (also the backdrop for the 2020 musical Inferno, by the Grieco Brothers) and has been running continuously in the Cave of Castelcivita since 2012. They continued with a performance of Purgatorio at the Certosa di Pedula. They return to Salerno for their Paradiso, staged in the Castello di Arechi (promotional poster, right).

The troupe has also performed their Inferno in the Museo del Sottosuolo, and their Purgatorio in the Real Casa Santa dell’Annunziata, both in Naples.

See the Tappeto Volante website for details and reservations.

Categories: Performing Arts, Places
Tagged with: 2012, 2020, Immersive Theater, Inferno, Italy, Naples, Paradiso, Purgatorio, Salerno, Theater

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How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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