Convergenze - Kepler-452

From 17 to 26 September 2026, a festival conceived and directed by Kepler-452 returns to Bologna for the first time since Festival 20 30.

Convergenze takes its name from the time the company spent alongside the ex-GKN Factory Collective, which has made the practice of bringing different struggles together a method and a way of understanding reality.

The ambition of Convergenze is to offer a different perspective on the reality that surrounds us every day, directing the audience’s gaze towards places that are less frequented, more often overlooked and more difficult to observe, through theatre.

At the heart of the festival is an invitation extended by Kepler-452 to a number of artists, asking them to engage with the task of portraying reality through their own artistic journeys and distinctive approaches. These artists already have a strong relationship with reality in their work, although they would probably not describe what they do as documentary theatre. They are Marco D’Agostin, Davide Enia and Matilde Vigna.

The company has invited the three artists to undertake a residency in selected locations, chosen to create a portrait of a territory that we see changing before our eyes, often with a sense of helplessness and concern. During these residencies, each artist will be accompanied by a person selected for their specific expertise in the contexts being explored, whom for convenience we will refer to as an “expert”.

Marco D’Agostin, together with Andrea Chiloiro from the Collettivo Boschilla, will explore the Bologna Apennines, observing through the eyes of a dancer and an intellectual what happens when an area becomes depopulated, is repopulated by new communities or becomes a refuge for people seeking to move away from urban centres.

Davide Enia, accompanied by Agnese Doria, teacher and educational coordinator, has instead been invited to explore the changes taking place in the city of Bologna, from the perspective of an actor and author who is a leading figure in Italian narrative theatre. Unexpectedly, he has decided that his contribution will take the form of an installation based on interviews with a large number of children, asking them about the city.

Matilde Vigna, an actress and author who over the years has demonstrated a remarkable ability to weave together personal biography and major global developments, will explore the Romagna Riviera and its transformations. She will be accompanied by Alex Giuzio, a journalist specialising in coastal erosion and issues related to beaches and tourism. Each of these projects will include an initial open rehearsal in the locations being explored, before culminating in a more structured presentation at the Teatro Arena del Sole, in collaboration with Emilia Romagna Teatro ERT / Teatro Nazionale. The aim of these projects is not, of course, to produce a finished performance, but to share a period of exploration with the audience.

The programme will also feature a series of existing performances hosted at the Oratorio di San Filippo Neri as part of LabOratorio, curated by Mismaonda together with the Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna.

Sergi Casero Nieto, a Catalan performance artist, will stage El Pacto Del Olvido, a work that interweaves reflections on the collective forgetting of Spain’s Francoist period with his own family history. Niccolò Fettarappa, an actor, author and theatre director born in 1996, will return to Bologna with Ustica. Una cosa che non fa ridere, commissioned by the Associazione Parenti delle Vittime della Strage di Ustica. In the performance, a twenty-eight-year-old attempts to rebuild a relationship with Italy’s collective memory and its unresolved mysteries of state. An additional performance will be selected through an open call aimed at works that, in some way, engage with reality.

Caterina Marino, a Rome-based actress, author and theatre director, will lead a workshop at DAMSLab in collaboration with the Department of the Arts and Il Centro La Soffitta. Entitled Parole da rubare, the workshop will explore some of the techniques that led to the creation of the performance La futura classe dirigente, in which a large number of interviews with children are brought together to create a reflection on the future of the planet and our present.

Finally, Tenere banco returns to Villa Celestina in collaboration with Libera Bologna. The project by Nicola Borghesi invites artists, activists, actors and thinkers to give a series of public speeches, in search of the lost dimension of public discourse, a form that feels particularly necessary today.

Venues:

• Casa di Quartiere Ruozi – via Castelmerlo, 13, Bologna – free admission
• Cisim Lido Adriano – viale Giuseppe Parini, 48, Lido Adriano (RA) – admission with voluntary contribution
• ProLoco di Campolo – via Campolo, 51/c, Grizzana Morandi (BO) – free admission
• Oratorio di San Filippo Neri – via Manzoni, 5, Bologna – free admission, booking required
• Teatro Arena del Sole – via dell'Indipendenza, 44, Bologna – tickets on sale from 7 July 2026
• DAMSLab – Department of the Arts, Piazzetta P. P. Pasolini, 5/b, Bologna – free admission with mandatory registration, open from 27 July 2026
• Villa Celestina – Property confiscated from organised crime – via Giovanni Boccaccio, 1, Bologna – admission with voluntary contribution, limited capacity