Italy has always amazed the world
for its extraordinary ability in conjugating art and culture.
Thus, nowadays it can stand also overseas as a candidate to become a meeting-point among different cultures
and religions.
The country can propose itself as a forge
of peace and protagonist of strategic initiatives that,
supported by culture, can promote communion
and comprehension among peoples.
The Honorable Sandro Bondi, Minister of Culture.
Religions often become
a pretext for divisions, aggressions and wars. Everyone thinks to be
a guardian of absolute truth and it seems he does not need anymore the truth of the other.
A master, Sufi Ibn Arabi, once wrote that “God’s greatness is containable neither in all our books, nor in his world and sky, but only in the heart of the one
who looks for him. Water takes the color
of its container”.
But the man pretends
he does not know it and commits himself to find the breaking points more than the meeting ones. This project aims to be a mean of comprehension – through spectacle – of different religious and spiritual paths.
Pamela Villoresi, Artistic Director
The NATIVITY is a spiritual event shared by
every human being, regardless of what culture, ethnicity or religion one may belong to. With its simplicity,
the crib may be considered as one of the most ancient
and beautiful fables ever. The crib contains a
universal message and has a great emotional impact
since its spiritual content represent the original
divine dimension of the concept of “birth”.
NATIVITY in FAENZA and NYC is
a visual architectural display, a unique crib created by means of innovative technologies involving various forms of art
such as cinema, photography, theatre, music, 3D animation and computer graphics. The NATIVITY will be displayed in New York on the façade of the building housing the Italian Cultural Institute, during
the “Divinamente New York” International Festival.
Born in Lhasa, Yungchen Lhamo escaped from Tibet
after the Chinese invasion and settled in India.
In 1995, she moved to Australia
where she recorded her debut album Tibetan Prayer.
Her first European concert took place in Venice in 1996;
afterwards she participated in many prestigious
international festivals, always with great success.
In her songs there is the echo of an uncommon path,
that of a people isolated from the rest of the world.
Her songs are meant to inspire and heighten and
aim to open a window on the audience’s spirituality.
This delicate and charming woman captures
the public singing melodies that evoke
the snow covered peaks of her country, and with the beauty
of her voice she makes us believe that there might
be a small piece of Paradise on earth
participants include:
Pamela Villoresi, Italian actress/ director
Yungchen Lhamo, Tibetan singer
Professor Giacomella Orofino
(Tibetan Literature, Oriental
University, Naples)
“I believe that normality is evil and that madness
is the worst. I believe that the right to be different
is also the right to be equal.”
These words are by Sandro Gindro,
Freudian psychoanalyst, composer and playwright, founder of journal “Psychoanalysis Against”
and of the “Psychological Institute for Social Research”. In this drama, there is only one character on stage -
a priest who struggles between the two parts of his soul: the priest and the clown.
The single question posed is to believe or not
in the existence of God.
When the clown is eliminated, the one person
for whom the Earth and its pleasures were created,
the priest ponders “what will God do now?”.
In this way, he affirms the existence of God.
A mosaic full of signs and intelligent stimulus,
a journey in time and space, an ideal soundtrack
for the soul: this is how “Sacrarmonia” is configured.
The project is designed and realized
by Antonella Ruggiero, one of the most versatile voices on the Italian scene. First with Matia Bazar
and then, from the 1990s onward with a multi-faceted
and successful career as a soloist,
she managed to touch many different themes.
Accompanied by Mark Harris and Carlo Cantini, in Sacrarmonia, Antonella tries to explore
charming territories and historical materials and to make a journey among the mixtures of sacred music
of the entire world with a focus on Christian music.
“Kavanàh”, which means “participation” in singing,
is a collection of pieces inspired from different sources, from the Jewish sacred hymns to those of tzigan
or gypsy tradition. The masters of cabalàh,
observe that the first word of the Torah, “in origin” – “bereshit” in Hebrew – contains an extraordinary anagram:
taev shir, voluptuousness of a song. With the cabalists,
it can be poetically maintained that the world
was created with the voluptuousness of a song.
Singing is seen as the first mean
of innercommunication, as the first blossoming
of our identity when we are born. Jewish singing, khazanuth, allows us to continue the journey
in the deep meanders of the soul where
the primary instincts give a direction to our emotions.
Therefore the most important instrument
of interpretation for the cantor is the kàvanah,
the participation, the adhesion to singing
as an intimate urgent dialogue with divinity.
In Hebrew “Omanut”, art has the same root of “emunà”: faith. It is the great dilemma of the Jewish artist:
to make of one’s life a form of art or
to make of art one’s life?
The show is an oratory dedicated to the life, faith
and martyrdom of Edith Stein. Jewish by birth, converted to Catholicism, Edith Stein was deported
and killed in the gas chamber in Auschwitz
in 1942. Before that, she stayed for a few days
in the Westerbork camp, Holland.
In that same period Etty Hillesum,
a young Jewish writer, was interned there
for about one year with her family.
It is said that the two women actually met
in August 1942, a few days before Edith Stein
was deported and killed.
Nobody knows what they said to each other.
Now, let’s imagine being in detention with them
for an hour trying to hear what they talk about
in a low voice.
A touching testimony of their existence
during the obscure period in which Europe
was dominated by Nazi fascists.
Tickets: $20.
Seniors, students and members of the Asia Society,
ICI and personnel of the Italian Consulate: $15.
Tickets Box Office: 212 517 2742
Box office hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
www.asiasociety.org - www.tickets.asiasociety.org
74A East 4th. St. New York,
NY 10003
Tickets: $20.
Seniors, students, members of the IIC and personnel of the Italian Consulate: $15.
Tickets Box Office: call 212 475 7710
Online ticket sales: www.lamama.org
Tickets: $20.
Seniors, students, members of the IIC and personnel of the Italian Consulate: $15.
Cash payment only.
Reservations: by phone - 212 879 4242 ext. 333
by mail - info@divinamentenyc.org
Tickets: $20.
Seniors, students, members of the IIC and personnel of the Italian Consulate, and the Centro Primo Levi: $15.
www. primolevicenter.org;
online sales: www.smartix.com
www.middlechurch.org
Tickets: $20.
Seniors, students,
members of the IIC
and personnel of the
Italian Consulate, $15.
Cash payment only.
Reservations:
212 879 4242 ext. 333
or info@divinamentenyc.org
