A few hours after the Prime Minister's Decree suspending public events in theatres, cinemas and open spaces in Italy, the “So Far So Close. Esercizi di vicinanza” Performing Arts Festival produced by the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation with artistic collaboration from Silvia Bottiroli and Cristina Ventrucci, in partnership with Apt Basilicata and ASM Matera and with the patronage of the Municipalities of Matera, Montescaglioso, Venosa, San Mauro Forte, Cirigliano, Latronico and San Severino Lucano, reached its conclusion in Matera.

The Festival, which opened, on 12 September in the Cava del Sole in Matera, the iconic location of the 2019 European Capital of Culture, explored both the new inter-personal relationships in a time of social distancing and the new relations that can be developed between urban and remote areas. Through a process of collective re-education, it established new rituals around being together through new ways of exploiting public spaces. Seven artists and companies (Emma Dante, Virgilio Sieni, Chiara Guidi, Annamaria Ajmone, Luigi Coppola, the Compagnia MK and Daria Deflorian and Antonio Tagliarini were called on for this purpose. They updated their questions in the middle of a pandemic time, placing proximity – including in relation to the relationship between interpreting reality and constructing the imaginary – at the heart of their work, and focusing on the relationship between the human and non-human, and between the visible and invisible. Ten works and sixteen repeat performances were staged, including theatre, dance, cinema and public and relational art, characterised by interventions in a redesigned public space using forms of opening that were able to include the public not only in the enjoyment of a finished work, but in very different ways, in the responsibility for constructing it. Approximately 2,000 spectators attended the performances, while around 50 citizens were involved in the three workshops set up in Matera with the artists. Seven municipalities from different parts of Basilicata (Matera, Montescaglioso, Venosa, San Mauro Forte, Latronico, San Severino Lucano and Cirigliano) were selected, from Colina Materana to Vulture and Pollino Park, using frequently unconventional open-air spaces such as the wood or the gallery of a shopping centre as stages for the performances.

All the events were held in full compliance with the laws on preventing contagion, which were communicated using the arrangements set up by the Open Design School, which over the past months studied and tried out the system for hosting the public so that in spite of the distance, those taking part in a performance would be able to feel that they were fully involved in it and were protagonists in complete safety. Judging by the data from the monitoring questionnaires at the end of the performances, which successfully involved not only Matera 2019’s loyal public but also a completely new audience, with a fifth of the attendees arriving from Puglia, especially from Bari, Taranto and Valle d'Itria, the objective was reached. 70.7% of the participants stated that the physical distancing measures that were adopted did not affect their participation, while 90.4% reported that they were satisfied with the security and the contagion prevention methods that were adopted. The status of the work of the Open Design School was shared with the public at six open meetings, the Open Reviews, some of which were organised at the Teatro Quaroni in La Martella di Matera. They were attended by the Festival artists, with whom an ongoing dialogue was created so as to adapt the arrangements to the specific requirements of the individual performances. The results of this work have been gathered together in an Open Source Manual, which will be available to anyone wanting to put on live events during Covid. The Manual will be downloadable from the Open Design School's website ods.matera-basilicata2019.it/ in the next few weeks.

"The attention paid to proximity", explain the curators Bottiroli and Ventrucci, "may be a gift the pandemic experience has given us. The virus is a tragic collective event that has provided us, as men and women of the twenty-first century, with a Greek chorus that has rediscovered existential questions that are often buried beneath the temples of consumerism or dissolved in the itch for communication. The first step we wanted to take here, through an intense, crazy action, was to turn to the performing arts as a preferred way of rediscovering the extent of our feelings, in the space between ourselves and others. The artists on the stage and their constant search have become the horizon at which we can track down ancient impulses and multiple instincts; they have been the body we can ask how we can expand our ability to understand".

"The aim of the exercises in closeness we have proposed with the So Far So Close Festival", underlines Rossella Tarantino, the Development and Relations Manager of the Matera-Basilicata 2019 Foundation, "was to reactivate social relations after the difficult period of physical distancing caused by the lockdown, using the disciplines that were most seriously affected in relational terms – the performing arts. By adopting the anti-contagion provisions in a timely manner, we have shown – like everyone who has organised cultural activities during this period – that they can be put on in total safety. The stop imposed on public performances has therefore pained us greatly, not only because culture is something we need in order to feel good, but also because it impacts society in many important ways. With the experience of Matera 2019 Capital of Culture, we have been able to prove that investment in culture has a social impact in terms of bringing people who do not usually have access closer to it, has psycho-physical benefits, leads to a growth in the community and a desire to get involved in one's local territory and also has significant economic impacts, by providing work to many sectors associated with culture. For this reason, we hope that investments in culture will continue to be made in the near future, looking at Matera and Basilicata not only as a tourist destination and a place to be passed through, but also as one where culture is produced and inhabited".