For its seventh stage, “Playing Memories” – the artistic residency project created by the Saint Louis College of Music in Rome – returns to L’Aquila, at the A. Casella Conservatoire, already the venue of one of the previous residencies.
Leader of the new project is dancer and choreographer Mattia Carlucci, who presents the idea of a performance inspired by a tragic but little-known event that took place in his homeland, Apulia.
On 13 June 1960, the feast day of Saint Anthony, a fire devastated a tobacco factory in Calimera, in the heart of Grecìa Salentina. The flames were sparked by a cigarette butt, perhaps not tossed by chance. Twelve female tobacco workers, who were not assigned to that department, became trapped in the fire. Six of them would lose their lives.
From this forgotten episode – deeply rooted in the history of Southern Italy – Mattia Carlucci builds a work that, by placing the body at the centre as an instrument of memory and narration, becomes at once a performative gesture and an act of denunciation.
“Sentiti tabacchine” aims to shine a spotlight on the South: exploited, abandoned, wounded, yet also alive, diverse, and resilient. A South where “myth and rite”, folk beliefs, archaic songs and ancestral dances withstand the passage of time, creating a powerful, invisible bond between generations.
Mattia seeks to tell the story of the spirit that permeates his land. “Sentiti tabacchine” is the gesture through which he strives to restore voice to the dignity of women’s work, to oral memory, and to the strength of community.
The six tobacco workers of Calimera, brought to the stage, represent the Voice of those women, while the burning factory thus becomes the symbol of a place where work can sometimes turn into a trap with no escape.
The body is not only a means of expression, but becomes altar, archive and denunciation, in constant dialogue with music – suspended between electronics, percussive elements, and archaic sounds of the Mediterranean and folk tradition – and with visual art.
The heritage of dances and songs from the oral tradition of Southern Italy thus embraces the panorama of World Music, in an ancestral, timeless, mythical atmosphere, in order to narrate the present.
“Sentiti tabacchine” will premiere at the Auditorium of the A. Casella Conservatoire in L’Aquila.
The international performance will take place in Prague, where, thanks to the partnership with the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, the show will be staged at the Ponec Theatre.
“Playing Memories” is a project by the Saint Louis College of Music, produced in co-production with the Alfredo Casella Conservatoire in L’Aquila, the Fondazione Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan, RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts, and ISIA Roma Design – Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche.
SAVE THE DATE
14 September 2025, 6:00 pm – Auditorium of the A. Casella Conservatoire, L’Aquila – Via Francesco Savini, 7 – L’AQUILA
18 September 2025, 8:00 pm – Ponec Theatre – Husitskà 899/24a – PRAGUE
ARTISTIC CAST
Music
Maia Citoni Singer
Davide Salvadori Sound Designer/Guitarist
Raffaello Filippi Percussionist
Fiorenzo Santoboni Cellist
Dance
Carlotta De Amici
Rebecca Moriondo
Elena Palombieri
Arianna Terreno
Amálie Cuplová
Vladlena Klimek
Choreography by Mattia Carlucci
Visual Art
Morgana Cavicchioli
Costume Designer
Marika Caramia
Tutor
Fabio Cocifoglia, Theatre Direction
Maria Grazia Fontana, Music
Giada Primiano, Dance
Federico Ambra, Visual Art
Markéta Vajdová, Visual Art