Mbira

Roberto Castello is a leading artist of the Italian contemporary dance, and in the last decades he has been paying attention to the current times, in an ironic, polemical and political way: with the show Mbira he keeps on dealing with social issues and civil battles, by willingly pointing out what is going wrong.

Mbira is a concert for two dancers, two musicians and a director that - using music, dance and speech - attempts to take stock of the complex relationship between our culture and that of Africa. Mbira is the name of a Zimbabwean musical instrument, but also the name of the traditional music produced with this instrument.

'Bira' is also the name of an important traditional festival of the Shona people, Zimbabwe's main ethnic group, in which they sing and dance to the sound of the Mbira.

Mbira, however, is also the title of a 1981 musical composition, around which a controversy arose and that well represents the extreme problematic and complex cultural and moral entanglement that characterises the relations between Africa and Europe.

Mbira is a word around which an astonishing number of stories, music, dances, festivals and reflections on art and culture are woven into a performance that, combining styles and forms, meticulous scores and improvisations, writing and orality, contemplation and play, results in a party as its inevitable epilogue.

MBIRA

Music, dance and words concert for city squares and theatres
choreography and direction Roberto Castello
music and performance Marco Zanotti (percussions, limba)
and Zam Moustapha Dembélé (kora, tamani, vocals, balafon)
dance and vocals Ilenia Romano e Giselda Ranieri
vocals Roberto Castello
texts Renato Sarti, Roberto Castello with the collaboration of Andrea Cosentino
production ALDES - TEATRO DELLA COOPERATIVA
with the support of MIC - DIREZIONE GENERALE SPETTACOLO DAL VIVO, REGIONE TOSCANA -
SISTEMA REGIONALE DELLO SPETTACOLO e ROMAEUROPA FESTIVAL