Article for Meeting catalogue. By Davide Rondoni

If the question were asked what method the Meeting uses to draw up its programme bill, any reply would be confused or at least par tial. Suffice it to mention the large opening event. Where does this fantastic space ship come from that carries a film masterpiece like from that carries a film masterpiece like Dreyer’s “Joan of Arc”, together with the original made in Usa music of a great contemporary composer? Where does the crowded and variegated Meeting show circus come from ? There are large shows or par ticular per formances of leading ar tists; there are original shows in which ar tists are asked to take par t; there are new productions and old friends; a myriad concer ts, big and small, theatre, again big and small, films and per formances. Famous and less famous names. Refined ar tists and others just star ting their careers. Is it a sor t of festival disseminated between conferences? A mix put together with the idea of satisfying as many people as possible, like a great summer ice-cream parlour? Is their a thread, a dosage, a strategy? No. There is a blossoming of meetings. The Meeting show programme is the result of an adventurous and reckless series of encounters. With musicians, actors, men of the cinema and literature. People who have been coming to the Meeting for years or those who have come for the first time. This is a programme which, on taking a closer look, states a map of meetings and occasions that go back years, or very recent encounters. With just those few things that, at first sight, defy understanding and which distinguish the results of any encounter. And with just that small dose of the transitory. A programme then that stems from a free spirit little inclined a bend to logics that seem to dominate everywhere in the world of show-business: fame and business. Here we experiment, we move against the grain, beyond the already known. We are not “televisive”, as a famous actress once said with astonishment on visiting the Meeting. If television, or that which it presents were enough to kindle astonishment, curiosity, laughter or entertainment in us, if what we already receive as pre-packaged shows were enough, we should have already been out of business a long time ago. The fact is that the Meeting is still in business and going strong. It trusts in our ability to find new cues and aspects in listening to classical music or jazz, in the participation in lots of ways of per forming theatre, in viewing films or per formances. Which does not necessarily mean finding new and strange things. But things new, the “astonishing”, that which astonishes, reaches us through show, by “showing” something authentically human and real. And the shows you will see will be the upshot of encounters and encounters in their own right. Because the Meeting grows with shows. And through shows.…