SÂLMON< FESTIVAL

February 8 to 18 & 23 & 25

WHAT COMES NEXT

It is obvious to everyone that things have changed. The stage is already altered and the landscape is now drawn up in a different way. Quite simply, this is the advent of what comes next. What comes next is not exactly the future. In fact, what comes next does not have anything to do with the classical linear sequence that forces us to think about time using events that exclude each other. Now the idea is not to project ourselves towards times and places where we are not present. Rather, it seems that what we need to do now, precisely now, is to use all our energies and talents to listen to and to respond to the possibilities and concrete chances offered to us by today’s reality.

What comes next is the consequence. And consequences always involve change, a reformulation of positions, methodologies, horizons and scope. This new edition of the SÂLMON< festival that we are presenting to you is an opportunity to take the consequences of what has already happened on board and, above all, to draw a new horizon on which we can imagine a possible continuation.

It is time for the SÂLMON< festival to welcome whatever is coming next. From its origins, this project has experienced very different temporalities. It is far removed from the idea of a festival as something that disrupts daily life for a short time and then disappears. Rather, over six years SÂLMON< has produced simultaneous actions, anachronisms, continuities, repetitions, retentions, transformations, coincidences, waits, accelerations, pauses, etc. Different temporalities have been interwoven and have led not merely to a programme of shows, but also to a complex choreography in which performers, managers, programmers and viewers, all from very different contexts, have not stopped moving. Looking back, it becomes clear that all this rich and complex temporal framework has created a kind of living being in which everything has always been part of a process. So, during all this time, our curatorial work has not consisted so much in coming up with an event for holding dance shows, but more in the management and accompaniment of creative processes, taking care to respect their specific temporal natures. This can only be done when we appreciate the uniqueness of each project and each artist that we have worked with. We have moved well beyond the hackneyed festival model that we can see in any city in the world these days, a model which turns the work of the artists into commodities. Indeed, these six years have formed a body of unrepeatable and deeply unique experiences. SÂLMON< has been conceived by thinking about both the arrival points and the paths travelled, about both the pieces and the processes that led them to be created. Because of this, it would be foolish to resist the arrival of the consequences: everything that has happened has transformed the scene and, simply, we have to accept our responsibilities, enjoy our achievements and define what will come next.

From here, SÂLMON< begins a period of transformation: new players will come in and new contexts will be defined. Contexts that obviously we do not know about yet. So this is the time to imagine and also to ask for more. What if what comes next is a change of scale? What if this city would now recognize the need for a stable space that can support three things: that which is unique, that which can only be born in this environment, and that which can only happen here? And what if the rich fabric that has been woven over six editions were to be understood as an opportunity for the city to reinforce real bonds of collaboration with other cities, their artists and their challenges? What if we dared to do just that?

See the programme at www.salmon-dance.com

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