PLEIADES
THE SQUARE LIGHTS UP

music, dance and video mapping under the stars

KENZO TANGE TOWERS
Fiera District – Piazza Renzo Imbeni, Bologna

PREVIEW UNDER30 – 18th July, 9.30 pm
PERFORMANCES – 19-20th July, 9.30 pm

A new spectacular event in one of the most fascinating squares of Bologna, dominated by the monumental towers by Kenzo Tange. In the evenings from 18 to 20 July, the towers designed by the famous Japanese architect, with their height of 83 meters, become a majestic setting for a site-specific performance that combines music, dance and video mapping. Bodies in movement on sound tracks designed by the most diverse percussion instruments, in the succession of music by Steve Reich, Minoru Miki, Casey Cangelosi, Bach, Rubino-Mucchi, up to the notes of Iannis Xenakis, inspired by the constellation of the Pleiades. Precisely in the finale, the particular rhythms and timbres of Pléïades, an amazing piece for percussion by the composer-architect Iannis Xenakis, will be the sonic cosmos within which the video artist Luca Agnani moves, merging celestial motifs with the soaring architectural geometries of the square. After the spectacular projections on the facade of the Basilica of San Petronio in Piazza Maggiore, the Pleiadi Bologna Festival project lights up a new square in Bologna, in the modern Fiera District.

The PLEIADES project. LA PIAZZA SI ACCENDE, produced by the Bologna Festival based on an idea by Maddalena da Lisca, is realized thanks to the support of ALFASIGMA main project partner and with the support of the MINISTRY OF CULTURE as part of the Special Projects 2023 fund, EMILIA-ROMAGNA REGION, MUNICIPALITY OF BOLOGNA as part of Bologna Estate 2023 and BOLOGNA FIERE GROUP.

«Bologna Festival is preparing to light up another square – says Maddalena da Lisca, superintendent and artistic director of Bologna Festival – this time no longer to reveal its past but rather to project it into the future. A future of discovery, liveliness and new life, which we wish for that place of metaphysical beauty which, mostly deserted, lies silent in its imposing charm. The challenge is to bring the general public there, under those astonishing towers, to amaze them with the suggestions of the most experimental music, with dance that underlines its rhythm and with the spectacular light effects that will ignite Kenzo Tange’s architectural vertigo».

«Pleiadi, La Piazza lights up – music, dance and videomapping under the stars: after Piazza Maggiore and San Petronio, the Piazza del Fiera District and the Towers of Kenzo Tange. Two places so deeply rooted in the city and so right to support the shows of the Bologna Festival. The Bolognese know what treasures their city holds and sometimes imagining them “dressed” in a different way can also give rise to the desire to highlight others that are also suitable for being presented in a way that is not always the case». Silvana Spinacci, Head of Corporate Image & Social Responsibility of Alfasigma

The realization of the videomapping on the piece Peaux taken from Pléïades by Xenakis is entrusted to the video-artist Luca Agnani, a figure of international importance in the field of digital art, already appreciated for the realization of the videomapping on the historic facade of San Petronio. A new creative challenge that restores the calculated geometries of the Kenzo Tange towers in sound luminescence: «A videomapping – explains Luca Agnani – that explores the fascinating connection between the universe and the mathematics used in the construction of the Kenzo Tange Towers. Patterns that reveal the harmony and intelligence behind the design, offering an interesting connection between the universe, architecture and music. The projections come alive and transform, revealing the fusion between the celestial motifs and the geometries of the towers, creating a perfect visual symbiosis». Each piece of music in the program will be performed with a specific light design or with video mapping specially designed for this event; the choreographic movements created by Paxton Ricketts, dancer of the Nederlands Dans Theater also active as a choreographer, live in suggestive symbiosis with the sound movements performed by the Sonder Ensemble and Simone Rubino on percussion.