An entire festival dedicated to the great Poet, organised in partnership with the Italian Cultural Institute of Prague, closed the celebrations in the Czech Republic for the seven hundredth anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death.
The Den poezie (http://www.denpoezie.cz/) event, which is held every year in November, since 1999, throughout the country to celebrate the birth of the Czech romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha, shines the spotlight on important Czech and foreign poets. The theme of the recently ended 2021 edition was, precisely, ‘The Divine Comedy’. The Festival opened on 8 November in the Italian Cultural Institute with a symbolic walk from the Dark Forest to Paradise, during which passages from Dante’s masterpiece were recited, along a path that led from the cloister to the Baroque Chapel. The Chapel then hosted a series of readings in Czech by the poets Vít Janota, Sylva Fischerová and Tomáš Míka, followed by a performance by the poet and musician Oldřich Janota.
Numerous initiatives were organised for the occasion in the Czech Republic, with public readings, competitions between poets, recreational activities in schools, literary walks, lessons on Dante’s toponymy, theatrical performances, virtual and role-playing games inspired by the Divine Comedy, and excursions into psychedelic culture. In particular, the three video performances by the “Artemis Danza” company from Parma, entitled “Ombre” (Shadows), broadcast on the festival’s YouTube channel and Facebook page, were a great success. The show is inspired by and based on several famous passages of the Divine Comedy and unfolds with the figures of Charon, Minos, Francesca da Rimini, Ulysses and others, on a research path accompanied by the narrating voices of Agostino Rocca, Jiří Mádl and Hana Vágnerová, through which the choreographer Monica Casadei investigates the human soul, composing an impressive carnal and poetic picture. Framing the festival are a pair of tercets from the Paolo and Francesca episode, posted on public transport in the main Czech cities. The tribute to Dante Alighieri was enriched with new events on the sidelines of the “Den poezie” event, which closed with a public reading with musical accompaniment in the Olomouc library.