Conference "Twenty years of UNESCO intangible cultural heritage"
The conference Twenty years of UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, edited by Matteo Casari and Matteo Paoletti, is sponsored by the Italian National Commission for UNESCO and will see the participation of the Secretary General, Min. Enrico Vicenti, and representatives of the Ministry of Culture, including the head of the Unesco Office of the Italian Ministry of Culture, Maria Assunta Peci, and the responsible for the Convention 2003, Elena Sinibaldi. At the suggestion of the UNESCO Commission, the event will be held in Bologna on 13 and 14 December 2023.
The conference includes three performative moments, focused on the variety of the performative heritage inscribed in the list ICH 2003, that is a representation of Nō Theatre with artists coming from Japan, a concert of Sardinian tenor singing and a performance of Italian opera singing and Sicilian puppets. The artists involved from Japan are Umewaka Naohiko, professional actor (shize) of one of the most relevant traditional families, belonging to the Kanze school, and percussionist Ko Seijiro, of the prestigious Ko School, small drum player (kotsuzumi). The Sardinian polyphonic songs will be represented by the singers of the Confraternita Oratorio di Santa Croce di Castelsardo (Sassari). The activity is part of a wider project, called ‘Arts and performance twenty years after the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage’, based on the collaboration between the Italian National Commission for UNESCO, the Department of Arts of the University of Bologna, the Ministry of Culture, Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome), the Institute for Mediterranean Studies of the National Council of Research and the Municipality of Bologna.
The project consists of a series of initiatives to reflect on the 2003 UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, twenty years after its adoption.
