By Rachel Silver Maddock In the Italian folk dance the polka chinata, two men embrace, bending their knees and spinning in circles low to the ground. The Bolognese courtship dance from the early 1900s is difficult, exhausting, and requires hours of training to perfect. “It’s about how to deal with the weight of each other,
By Silvia Poletti On February 29, 2020, when I entered the beautiful Piccinni Theatre in the port city of Bari, I did not imagine it would be the last time I would be an audience member for a long while. That evening was a feast. The theatre had opened just two months earlier after eight
by Silvia Poletti Only 60 kilometres separate Bolzano from Rovereto, both located at the foot of the Dolomite Alps. Bolzano, a larger town, is lively, full of sparkling colours, with parks, water, mountains, palaces and markets all around. Various cultural influences — Indigenous Latin culture, German and Italian — add dynamic energy. Rovereto is a