BOLZANO (Italy) Following the voluntary decision of the current artistic director of the Bolzano Danza Festival Emanuele Masi to leave the guidance of the event at the conclusion of the 40th edition (July 12-27, 2024), the Board of Directors of the Haydn Foundation of Bolzano and Trento, organizer and promoter of the event, is issuing an international notice for the selection of a new artistic director of the Bolzano Danza Festival.

The expression of interest for the role - on the Foundation's website www.haydn.it - is aimed at cultural professionals who can take up the legacy of the Festival and become the creators of a new chapter in the artistic programming, while at the same time upholding the values and the scale that the Festival represents today. 

A historic Festival in the national and European scene, Bolzano Danza - since 2015 embedded within the Haydn Foundation - is a virtuous moment for the programming of the South Tyrolean institution: the high artistic level and international appreciation within the contemporary dance world combines with the valorization of the territory and the extraordinary presence of the Haydn Orchestra to accompany the performances.

Monica Loss, general director of the Haydn Foundation, has commented: "We acknowledge Emanuele Masi's desire to hand over the baton of the artistic direction of the Bolzano Danza Festival after fifteen uninterrupted years, thanking him for his work and the many successes shared. With him, the Festival has been a forge of innovative projects, a trait d'union between the arts and the artistic sectors of our Foundation. It has promoted the exploration of new digital technologies, and it has branched out into the territory, fostering relationships between communities, receiving many prestigious awards, both from critics and at a ministerial level in terms of artistic quality."

While explaining his decision, Emanuele Masi said: "I have been directing Bolzano Danza for more than a decade and have decided to end my artistic direction amid the festive mood of the upcoming 40th edition. I started caring for the Festival in 2008: back then I was 31 years old and I was working as the artistic secretary of the Teatro Comunale; in 2011 I co-signed the program and in 2013 I was appointed artistic director. Fourteen editions is a long time, during which I have reoriented the event on several occasions: by trying to interpret the needs of the Festival as if it were a living being, I have alternated actions of embeddedness to moments of growth, welcoming time and again new challenges. I have always sought the complicity of artists who could enrich my vision with their outlooks, but now I feel it is necessary for the Festival to receive additional stimuli, perhaps even completely different from my own. There’s one too many cultural events out there which, decade after decade, success after success, end up identifying with just the one 'man at the top' and thus become a kind of feud, a sort of possession. This does not reflect my credo: I see Bolzano Danza as a public good and as such, I believe it must remain pluralistic. Looking back on these 40 years, from 1985 to the present day, it is clear that every change of leadership has allowed the festival to grow and strengthen its identity. I am sure that this has also been the case under my artistic direction, with all its successes and mistakes, but it is precisely because I love Bolzano Danza that I want to see it grow further and further."

The call for expressions of interest will be published on the Haydn Foundation website.
www.haydn.it
www.bolzanodanza.it

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