Altofest Naples - 2024

ARTISTS' OPEN CALL DEADLINE >>> 15th October 2023
OPEN CALL for INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS

Altofest was born in 2011 as an act of resistance, both artistic and political. The aim is to give rise to a community based on the "poetic citizenship" principle. It calls to dialogue all the social components of the human-urban fabric in which it is grafted. It acts as a semantic interference in everyday life, allowing inhabitants to speak to each other in a neutral language and meet in a shared risk space, daring together.

Altofest is a systemic live performance by Teatringestazione, extended in time and space, shared in the form of a festival with a heterogeneous collectivity made up of artists, citizens, residents, researchers, scholars, and experts in the cultural sphere, conscious and occasional spectators.
Teatringestazione composes the dramaturgy of Altofest by combining the proposals received through the call for proposals with the domestic spaces and their inhabitants, giving rise to a collective action spread across different parts of the city. Altofest moves away from the function of mere "production" or "programming" of performances and artistic works, usually attributed to festivals, to become a space for experimental sociality. Citizens welcome international artists and authors from different disciplines who are invited to question their completed works in a public and collective way through a translation process for the domestic space.

Through Altofest, we want to radically question ourselves on the need to generate new values constantly, to redesign the relationship with places, to subvert the use of spaces and the established attribution of roles, to dare to cross borders (of gender, discipline, of competence, of action) that have never been attempted before.

This is why, when choosing proposals to send us, we invite artists to avoid being swayed by the thought of the work's easy adaptability. On the contrary, Altofest's opportunity is precisely that of reworking the performance’s structure, essence, and direction with the domestic place and the relationships that pass through and define it. The artists are invited for an artistic residency to process the selected work. The work will then be open to the public during the programming days following the residency.

HOW THE SELECTION PROCESS WORKS

A composition process is derived from carefully observing each proposal received, the aesthetic elements that compose it, and the poetics that generated it. We attempt to exercise a gaze that does not dominate but welcomes the interrogative power of the individual proposals, as this is translated into the signs that recur in each one, allowing a unique composition of works to emerge that form the body of the 2023 edition’s question.
A question that imposes itself on our gaze, overcoming the distances and differences that distinguish the artists who respond to our call.
We then summarise this question in the dramaturgy that we complete by combining the chosen works with the residents who welcome the artists into the heart of their daily lives.
Finally, we hand over to this emerging community the task of cohabiting in the space of risk, a neutral and uncomfortable zone, which becomes the site of an unprecedented and shared language, which forms the basis of the dialogue between the inhabitants of the community of the 'hovering city' of Altofest, built on the principle of poetic citizenship.

For further information and questions:
info@altofest.net
+39 320 0304861 (Whatsapp/telegram)

www.altofest.net

𝑨𝑳𝑻𝑶𝑭𝑬𝑺𝑻 is a project by

teatringestazione.com

Altofest was born in Naples in 2011, conceived and curated by TeatrInGestAzione, directed by Gesualdi | Trono, in dialogue with Loretta Mesiti as dramaturg.

It was awarded by the EFA (European Festivals Association) with the EFFE AWARD 2017-18 (Europe for Festivals, Festivals for Europe), resulting in the six best European festivals among more than 715 candidates. In 2018, it was included as a best practice in the annual report “Io Sono Cultura 2018” (t/n, I am culture), edited by Symbola Foundation. In 2018, the Italian Ministry of Culture awarded it with the “European Year of Heritage” label. Winner of the calls: Funder35 (2016); SIAE-Sillumina (2017); Allianz Kulturstiftung (2019). In 2018, Altofest left the borders of Naples for the first time, inaugurating a series of special editions commissioned by different European Capitals of Culture and international institutions: Altofest Malta 2018 for Valletta 2018 ECoC; Altofest Matera-Basilicata 2019 for Matera 2019 ECoC; and on 2022 a re-edition for Valletta, commissioned by the Valletta Cultural Agency. It is also included in the Kaunas 2022 nomination dossier and Trenčín 2026’s bid book as Every Part Counts’ key project, acting as a de facto connector of a “spontaneous” network among the cities sharing this title. Furthermore, Altofest is an indicator of the cultural interest in Naples in the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor tool of the European Commission.