Bari, the XVI edition of the 'People's Festival' at the Princigalli garden

Bari, the 16th edition of the "People's Festival" was presented this morning in the council room of Palazzo di Città, organized by the Abusuan intercultural center and the Comboni missionaries in collaboration with the Municipality of Bari, the Puglia Region, and numerous associations and communities foreign. Illustrating the program of the event was Taysir Hasan of Abusuan and Father Palmiro Mileto of the Comboni Missionaries, in the presence of the municipal councilor for Welfare, Francesca Bottalico, and for Educational and Youth Policies, Paola Romano, and Paolo Villasmunta of the secretariat of the CGIL Bari.

The party, scheduled in the “Giacomo Princigalli” garden on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th September with a preview on Friday 24th September, is the result of a process of intercultural development of our territory. The idea of ​​a large shared celebration was born from the belief that the meeting between different cultural realities and the multiplication of views are a precious source for building a multicultural dimension and raising awareness of the richness that access to diversity and the acceptance of others allow you to conquer.
“This year too, the People's Day will be an opportunity to come together and enhance the richness and value of diversity – declared Taysir Hasan -. During these days there will be many communities that will offer the public moments of music, dance and dedicated to gastronomy or reading, depending on the way each reality chooses to express its culture and identity. As always, it will be an event open to all, with the necessary precautions related to the ongoing pandemic, in the hope that it will be the last event organized in these conditions".
“Bari confirms itself as a city of hospitality not only for the actions and initiatives carried out in recent years in the name of inclusion but also for the socio-cultural processes it manages to activate – continued Francesca Bottalico -. One of the most important occasions is represented, every year, by the People's Day, built thanks to the protagonism of foreign communities and associations close to migrant realities that the administration is happy to support, because it is important that reception is experienced as a dimension that concerns us all. This year's edition, then, is particularly significant given that the health and social crisis has had a heavy impact on migrant people in particular."
“The Festa dei Popoli, which turns 16 this year, is indeed a celebration but above all an educational moment not only for adults but also for the little ones – underlined Paola Romano -. As per tradition, we will support the festival first of all with the participation of various school groups because we believe that teaching hospitality and full inclusion is not a task that falls only to families but a path that concerns the entire community because, although ours is a welcoming city, some values ​​should never be taken for granted but continually renewed, day by day, also through inclusive experiences like this".
“The Festival of Peoples is a meeting between cultures, fundamental for our city – concluded Palmiro Mileto -. This is an important moment because it represents a testimony of civil coexistence between different peoples. We Comboni Missionaries embarked, together with Abusuan, with enthusiasm on this beautiful adventure because we are missionaries, and a missionary by definition is a bridge man, that is, one who brings different cultures into contact. Today more than ever it is important to create bridges and not barriers: bridges convey messages of life and bring together elements of diversity, barriers risk making us implode in what can be defined as ethnic incestuousness, that is, being dazzled by the light of one's own identity to the point of not seeing anyone else anywhere else. It is evident, however, that there is no life without elsewhere and we ourselves, as we are, could not exist without the other, and only through the other are we able to build our identity. This festival, with its ethnic foods, its artisanal products, its dances, allows us to actually enter into the flavours, rhythms, times and way of being of the other".

Below is the program of the event:

Friday September 24st

Waiting for the People's Day – BA 17-24

A happening dedicated to indie music for the creation of an independent music circuit. Starting from 17pm, composers, soloists and groups will take turns on stage, including the Eleganza di Zebra collective, with the cellist D'Auria and the Argentine visual artist Jimena Ghirlandi in a dialogue between evocation of distant landscapes and Mediterranean sounds; the American guitarist David Place; the very young Botaniqve, winners of the last selection for Arezzo Wave; the refined “electric” violinist on board her loop station Victoria Sannicandro; the Vivavoce duo; the blues rock band Special Effects; the Nidoja duo with their Middle Eastern percussion; bassist Ottavia Farchi; the singer-songwriter Antonella Rubino; the electronic duo Matchless Sisters.
Small interlude at 19.30 pm "The women of Italian Cinema" by Domenico Palattella (2021 Dellisanti ed.) will be presented, a precious phamplet that collects "100 years of timeless divas". The author, the publisher Antonio Dellisanti and the journalist Cristina de Vita will speak.

Saturday and Sunday 25 26 September

People's Day

Over the course of the two days they will perform:
– Alma Terra: popular dances from around the world
– Samira Academy: Indian folk dances
– Enchantments of women: concert of popular female songs from all over the world
– Uaragniaun: musical project created to tell the ancestral stories of the stone people, the miseries and nobility of the "rough people in hell", men, beasts and heroes of the Apulian peasant civilization
– You grow up while traveling – Periplus
– Buonamicos Band: Mexican trio that explores various musical genres including rock, cumbia, funk, soul, reggae and swing with a fresh, direct and light language
– Mauritian dances
– Dances and music from the world
– MAV Noise Bands
– Radicanto: they propose the traditional music of southern Italy and the south of the world in an original key, conducting them through authorial compositions and sound miscellanies capable of uniting past and present in a single and ever-changing musical whole.
– Mondegreen: they propose an unexpected and unpredictable dialogue between different genres such as jazz, rock, ambient and world music.
– Morleo: the Luigi Morleo – Mattia Vlad duo explores the acoustic and emotional dimensions of current music by immersing themselves in minimalist flows and moving from jazz to world cultures in total synergy.
– Dub Fever: collective born from the union of veteran musicians and young fans of reggae music, with the aim of bringing this musical genre back to being played live and doing it in full dub style, following in the footsteps of the first Jamaican dubmasters.