Ballarò Buskers Festival returns to Palermo, featuring lively street arts.
“Rosalia frees Albergheria” is the motto of the eighth edition of Ballarò Buskers, an international festival of street arts and contemporary circus that will flood the streets and squares of the Palermo district with artists from around the world, creativity, color, music, and circus performances from October 18-20. The festival is born from the efforts of various associations, cooperatives, circles, parishes, restaurants, and residents who have been working for years to safeguard the identity and promote the revival of the historic Albergheria Market. This edition is supported by the Ministry of Culture, the Federico Secondo Foundation, and the patronage of the Palermo City Council’s Culture Department. Through a young trapeze artist spreading rose petals over the Albergheria, Manuela Di Pisa graphically invokes Santa Rosalia to save the identity and history of these places.
“This year, coinciding with the 400th anniversary of the Festino di Palermo, we address a symbolic prayer to Santa Rosalia,” says Marco Sorrentino, president of the Ballarò Buskers association. This includes asking for liberation from bureaucracy, which is hindering the opening of the covered market in Piazza Carmine and slowing down the regularization process of the second-hand market Sbaratto, as well as liberation from mass tourism, which displaces residents from neighborhoods and homes where they grew up, paving the way for speculation. The city belongs to everyone and must be a welcoming place, first and foremost for the community that inhabits it, where people can meet and discuss how to create beauty and improve the status quo in which they live.
To enhance, amplify, and support the identity of the neighborhood, the festival focuses on the historical beauty and social connections. There will be ten squares hosting the festival’s performances, with nearly fifty free shows that will enliven and transform the neighborhood. Approximately one hundred and fifty volunteers at various levels will be involved in organizing the event, along with children who participated in summer activities focused on street arts at the Santa Chiara Oratory Busker Grest. Special attention has been given to children with many workshops and activities dedicated to them, thanks to collaborations with various associations and cooperatives, such as Palma Nana, Circolo Arci Le Giuggiole, Circ’Opificio, Bottega delle percussioni, Spazio Euphoria, Radici piccolo museo della natura, Associazione Ridi che ti passa, Minimupa, Polo san Francesco, and Newbookclub. As in previous years, there will be visits to neighborhood monuments, including the Tower of San Nicolò and the Church of the Gesù or Casa Professa.”
Torna a Palermo il Ballarò buskers festival, il quartiere animato dalle arti di strada
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