Oriente Occidente: between dance and cultural innovation
As part of the “Tra Dire e Fare” call for proposals organised by the Caritro Foundation, EURICSE is supporting ten local organisations through a process of organisational rethinking and the formulation of their strategic development plans. The aim of the initiative is to help the organisations involved strengthen their structures and build more robust and sustainable growth trajectories over time.
Among the selected organisations is Oriente Occidente a leading cultural organisation at both national and international level in the fields of contemporary dance and the performing arts. In this context, the strategic support provided by EURICSE represents an opportunity to consolidate and strengthen Oriente Occidente’s position, supporting a process of organisational development focused on sustainability and the evolution of the social enterprise as an organisation with clear roots in its history but with an eye to the future, maintaining an ever-greater and more continuous presence in the local area. Founded in Rovereto in 1981, Oriente Occidente is one of the most established organisations on the Italian cultural scene, capable of combining artistic innovation, international outreach and a focus on the local community. Its activities are now organised into three main areas, Festival, Studio and People, which reflect an integrated vision of cultural production.
The Festival forms the heart of the programme and finds its main expression in the Oriente Occidente Dance Festival, an annual event that brings artists, companies and productions from all over the world to Trentino, offering a glimpse into the most innovative trends in contemporary dance, ranging from established names to new and promising talents.
Through its Studio space, Oriente Occidente supports artistic research and creation, hosting companies for artistic residencies and fostering processes of experimentation and dialogue that strengthen the link between artistic production and the local area.
Finally, the People section brings together projects dedicated to participation and cultural welfare, promoting initiatives that use art as a tool for building relationships and collective growth, with a particular focus on local communities and on engaging specific audiences. Among the most recent examples is ‘Urban Regeneration’, a wide-ranging project in which Oriente Occidente leads a network committed to the regeneration of the Urban Centre in Rovereto, and the programme dedicated to older people, which began with Un due tre stella, a project on bodily memory that also became a documentary, and continued for a further two years with a close-knit group of people aged over 65.
Credit photo – Residenza Sofia Nappi_Foto Giulia Lenzi
