SELVE — Community Theatre Festival

A community theatre festival in the Reggio Apennines

SELVE — Community Theatre Festival is a distributed festival that animates the hamlets of Collagna and Nismozza, in the Municipality of Ventasso, in the province of Reggio Emilia (Emilia-Romagna) every summer. Born from the work of the association Intelfade APS and entrusted to the artistic direction of Daria Menichetti, SELVE brings theatre, dance, poetic mime, and contemporary circus performances and workshops to a fascinating but fragile mountain territory, where there are no theatres or dedicated spaces for live performance.

The spirit of the festival

SELVE is a festival that starts from the small and the grassroots, designed for outdoors and for people of all ages, genders, and cultures. The goal is to introduce the inhabitants of the Reggio Apennines to quality performing arts and make them accessible to everyone, with an intersectional and sustainable approach. Each performance is accompanied by workshops open to the community, dedicated to creating social relationships and spreading the theatrical language through the sharing of artistic practices.

Performances and languages

The program combines different languages of contemporary theatre:

• physical theatre and children's theatre;
• contemporary dance, with moments dedicated to the tradition of polka chinata;
• poetic mime and circus arts;
• live music, including oral and musical traditions from West Africa.

Over the years, the festival has hosted important national companies and artists, building a dialogue between major names in the theatre scene and the audience of the small Apennine communities.

A project for the territory

SELVE is linked to the future Cinema Teatro Paradiso in Ligonchio, which is being renovated thanks to PNRR funds and is destined to become the future permanent home for cultural activities in the Municipality of Ventasso. The festival is supported by the Ministry of Culture, by NextGenerationEU as part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, by the Emilia-Romagna Region, and by the Municipality of Ventasso, in collaboration with Pro Loco Val d'Ozola APS and with the involvement of the schools of the Istituto Comprensivo Ludovico Ariosto of Ventasso. The festival is preceded by the spring cycle Aspettando SELVE (Waiting for SELVE), with performances and workshops in the hamlets and schools of the area.