The programme promoted by the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles on the occasion of the Italian Language Week” is rich. To begin with, the group exhibition dedicated to Dante Alighieri with installations, performances, and augmented reality is available online. It brings together the works of 150 internationally renowned Italian artists and illustrators, such as Mauro Gatti, Milo Manara, Emiliano Ponti, Nicola Verlato, Massimo Giacon, and LRNZ.
The exhibition, curated by Marco Miccoli, is organised by Bonobolabo in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institutes of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. The programme also includes a meeting with Gianrico Carofiglio, who will present, on 19 October, the English edition of his novel “Le tre del mattino” (Einaudi 2017). The event is organised by the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Public Library in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco. Wendy Horowitz will moderate it. Live streaming on the IIC Los Angeles Facebook page and the YouTube channel and Facebook page of the LAPL.
Carofiglio will also present the book on 21 October in an online event organised by the Consulate General of Italy in Houston in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles and moderated by Alessandro Carrera (the University of Texas at 6 Houston). On 23 October, a new online meeting introduced by Antonella Dell’Anna (Instructor School of International Letters and Cultures, Arizona State University) will be moderated by Olivia Grasso, a student of Italian. She is carrying out research (Honors project) on the author.
On 20 October, the programme of the Italian Institute of Culture in Los Angeles, on the occasion of the Week of the Italian Language in the World and of the Dante celebrations, presents a conference organised with the University of Houston and the Consulate General of Italy in Houston. International guests will attend the event, including Massimo Cacciari presenting his book Philosophy, Mysticism, and the Political: Essays on Dante (SUNY University Press 2022), edited by the conference moderator Alessandro Carrera of the University of Houston. The event will be held in Italian, while the introduction and Q&A will be in English. Finally, the programme of events will close with an online screening of The Sky over Kibera by Marco Martinelli produced by Teatro delle Albe, with a special introduction by the director. The docufilm recounts the “bringing to life” of the Divine Comedy in the vast slum of Nairobi, Kibera, where the director worked with 150 children and adolescents, reinventing Dante’s masterpiece in English and Swahili. Three teenagers from Nairobi offer the faces and voices of Dante, Virgil, and Beatrice. They are the guides who lead the spectators into the labyrinth of Kibera, where the “dark forest” in which the poet is lost is more than just a metaphor. In Swahili, Kibera means “forest”. Around them, a swarming chorus of bodies recites the turmoil of being both beasts and damned, thieves and murderers, devils and corrupt politicians and poets showing the ways to salvation. Between singing and acting, hectic running and wild dancing, the 150 protagonists give life to a fresco rich in moving poetry, further confirming the universality of Dante’s masterpiece. The film will be available online on the Institute’s YouTube channle from 21 October at 6 p.m. to 24 October at midnight.
