A festival does not exist without us and the world we live in.

This year we launched the Gender Bender Festival with Cauma Meridie, the dance workshop. At the center of this project there was the image of a Faun, a natural creature who is able to seduce by appearing human and animal, the embodiment of seemingly opposite elements, the one who invents music.

Months ago, in our intentions and conversations with the young Cesena-based company Dewey Dell (which is composed of Teodora, Agata, Demetrio Castellucci and Vito Matera), we imagined that project as a ritual of collective pleasure, which would be discovered and acted out by a community of 30 people.

One of the words that emerged during the creative journey of those weeks was “Alertness”.

An Alertness that was intended as Attention to where we find pleasure: in ourselves, with others, in a time and space that we decide to share together.

Alertness is a word that over the weeks continually acquired new meanings that were incorporated day by day within the group by the people who were part of it.

Until it acquired the significance of the emergency during the recent flood, which generated listening and support within the community towards the needs of others.

Listening, which is an action that emerges when we meet others, doggedly drives us to continually offer performances, screenings, workshops and parties that can be used as constant opportunities for discovery and dialogue.

The possibility that was envisioned and enacted to create a collective body, which in fact has been the real backbone of the festival all along.

This edition of Gender Bender also aims to be a possible worldview given by that collective body.

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all those people and organizations that with tireless generosity help the Gender Bender Festival to be what it is: Il Cassero, the festival’s working team, the volunteers, the Municipality of Bologna, the Emilia Romagna Region, the Ministry of Culture, Gruppo Hera, Coop Alleanza 3.0, Palazzo Bentivoglio, Idros, the countless partners you can find on the back cover of the program, and, above all, the artists and our beloved audience.

Thank you and enjoy the festival.

Daniele Del Pozzo and Mauro Meneghelli

Gender Bender’s artistic direction