Valerio Festi: his passion for open-air theatre was fostered in the confined space of libraries reading accounts of elaborate renaissance festivities and ingenious baroque theatricals. In 1977 he graduated from Bologna University having completed a thesis on festivities in the city. Festive space became the frame for his experiments and performance an essential part of his life. He founded Studio Festi, and his collaboration with Monica Maimone began: a life-time bond that endures to this day. He draws on the traditions of the Renaissance and the Baroque to unravel and celebrate the secret spirit of the city. The ephemeral, yet historically and culturally rich, splendour of these events attains an unprecedented communicative power. A wide range of celebrations are shown for what they really are: catalysts of the collective imagination, overwhelming manifestations of the democracy of beauty, giving it original, captivating and memorable form. There is every day time and then there is time for celebration. This is when we seek to shape the world as we would like it and when Valerio Festi reveals urban space as it could be.
