Too Much Fun! 3rd Venice International Carnival for Kids

La Biennale di Venezia 3rd International Kid's Carnival

(Venice, Italy) Tales and Thoughts, the third Venice International Carnival for Kids, blasted off on Saturday, February 11, 2012. Inside La Biennale's Central Pavilion down at Giardini, the opening ceremony was filled with youth and the young at heart, cheering, hooting and whooping it up. People were hanging from the bleachers, listening to La Biennale President Paolo Baratta's remarks. From the program:

The theme of Tales and Thoughts engages the imagination and encourages thinking. It's a Carnival! Yet with an ambition: to stimulate the imagination and the joy of creation while having fun. This is another step towards the construction of a great meeting place for projects and energies that in various parts of the world -- inside and outside the school system -- are dedicated to the very particular goal of enriching the education of the coming generations with their direct creative commitment.


This project is part of the Educational activities of La Biennale, activities that are meant to develop in young people a direct knowledge and experience of art, and more generally, of the world of artistic creation.

The Central Pavilion overflowed with enthusiasm, that joyful energy that brings people to life, as Baratta introduced the participating schools, nations and organizations. After the ceremony, the Arsenale della Danza Playground Bollywood performed the colorful "Bombay Express" conceived by Ishmael Ivo, the artistic director of the Dance Biennale. The audience was riveted as the young dancers put on a high-energy show. A man standing next to me asked, "Who are those dancers? Are they Italians?" I said, "They are international. They are students from all over the world who are part of the Arsenale della Danza."

The Arsenale della Danza is now in its fourth edition, and this year's dancers are off to a dynamic start. I've often written about the company. Click the link below to read more from last year:

Othella Dallas & Ismael Ivo Hit Grand Slams out of the Park

After the performance, the audience wandered through the Central Pavilion and got down to the business of creating, stopping along the way to enjoy a lasagne lunch, complete with beverages, all for free. If you missed the previous Venetian Cat - Venice Blog giving more details, you can read that here. As you can see, I have gotten my hands on a camera. Here are some photos from the event:

WARM up-cycled Fashion
from the Stitchery Collective, Australia

Future Stars

ElettrizzARTE! - USA - Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Beasts & Superbeasts - Romania - Soap Art Kollectiv

Future Graffiti Artist

I didn't have the chance to visit the HURRAY FOR MUSIC! program created by the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello of Venice, but I did hear the Conservatory play last evening at the Giorgio Cini Foundation -- it appears that the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory of Venice has been working very hard to bring music to our ears. 

In honor of the 129th anniversary of the death of Richard Wagner -- he died February 13, 1883 -- and in honor of the 20th anniversary of the foundation of the Richard Wagner Association of Venice, Maurizio Dini Ciacci conducted Siegfried-Idyll in mi maggiore WWV 103 (which Wagner dedicated to his wife, Cosima Liszt Wagner, in honor of her birthday) and Sinfonie in do maggiore WWV 29 to a packed house. The concert was in memory of Bruno Visentini, an anti-fascist Italian politician who reformed the tax system, as well as being President of the Giorgio Cini Foundation, who also died on February 13, 1995. That's a lot of memorials packed into one show!


Here's a romantic little anecdote from Wikipedia about the piece Wagner wrote for Cosima: 

On 25 December of that year (the day she usually celebrated her birthday, although it actually fell the day before), Cosima woke to the sound of music. She recorded the events in her diary:

"When I woke up I heard a sound, it grew ever louder, I could no longer imagine myself in a dream, music was sounding, and what music! After it had died away Richard came in to me with the five children and put into my hands the score of his "Symphonic Birthday Greeting." I was in tears, but so, too was the whole household; Richard had set up an orchestra on the stairs and thus consecrated our Tribschen forever! The Tribschen Idyll - thus the work is called!"^[23]

This was the memorable first performance of the chamber piece which was later renamed the Siegfried Idyll.

Click to go to the entire program of La Biennale di Venezia 3rd International Kids' Carnival, which has activities every day until Carnevale ends on Marti Gras, February 21, 2012.

Cat wearing new Vascellari Sunglasses

Ciao from Venice,
Cat
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog