The harmonies of the Florentine Chamber Orchestra, together with an outstanding ensemble and internationally renowned soloists, and the site-specific creation LA PRIMA DANZA à coups de marteau 1st step, conceived by choreographer Damiano Ottavio Bigi with dramaturge Alessandra Paoletti for the Fabbrica Europa Foundation, will enrich the visit to the evocative Florentine Cenacles, offering an itinerary that interweaves music, dance and artistic heritage.
From Sept. 3 to Oct. 23, 2025, there will be six concerts and four days of performances of the La Prima Danza project, hosted in the intimate and history-laden spaces of the Cenacolo di Sant’Apollonia, the Last Supper of Andrea del Sarto, the All Saints’ Supper and the Cenacolo del Fuligno.
This initiative invites the public to rediscover places often far from the usual tourist circuits, transforming them into living scenarios of a contemporary dialogue between sound, gesture and architecture. The event is promoted by the Regional Directorate National Museums of Tuscany with the Museo di San Marco and the Cenacoli Fiorentini, in collaboration with the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina and the Fondazione Fabbrica Europa, with the support of the Ministry of Culture - Direzione Generale Spettacolo.
The festival opens on Wednesday, September 3, at the Cenacolo di Sant’Apollonia (Via Ventisette Aprile 1 - 10:30 a.m.), with a concert by the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina dedicated to two absolute masterpieces: the Concerto in D major op. 35 by Tchaikovsky, interpreted by violinist Leone Pini, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major op. 92, famous for its rhythmic energy and sweeping force.
On Sept. 17, at the Cenacolo del Fuligno (Via Faenza 40 - 4:30 p.m.), violinist Paolo Ardinghi and pianist Bruno Canino offer a program dedicated to the classics of the 18th and 19th centuries, with pieces by Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn.
On Friday, Sept. 26, at the Last Supper of Andrea del Sarto in San Salvi (Via di San Salvi 16 - 11 a.m.), La musica miracolosa is staged, a show that recounts the life and legend of Wladyslaw Szpilman, the pianist from the Warsaw ghetto, with narration by Stefano Valanzuolo and piano by Francesco Nicolosi.
On Tuesday, Oct. 7, again at the Cenacolo di Sant’Apollonia (10:30 a.m.), the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina and violinist Marco Lorenzini will perform Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, a Baroque masterpiece that translates nature’s changes into music with virtuosity and poetic evocation.
On Sunday, Oct. 12, at the Last Supper of Andrea del Sarto (10:30 a.m.), the String Trio composed of musicians from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino - Fatlinda Thaci (violin), Leonardo Bartali (viola) and Elida Pali (cello) - will perform Schubert’s Trio for Strings D 471 and Mozart’s Divertimento K. 563, two works that enhance dialogue and sonic balance between instruments.
The musical programming concludes on Thursday, Oct. 23, at the Cenacolo del Fuligno (5 p.m.), with a concert conducted by Simone Pugliese that evokes the Italian folk tradition, bringing back to life melodies and rhythms linked to the collective memory of our country.
All concerts are free admission and will be held during normal museum opening hours, transforming a visit to the Cenacles into an experience in which visual art intertwines with music in a vibrant dialogue between image and sound.
From Sept. 17 to 20, at the Cloister and Cenacle of Ognissanti, instead, THE FIRST DANCE à coups de marteau 1st step comes to life . Open doors / Look at the creative process, signed by BIGI PAOLETTI Fritz Company. It is a site-specific contemporary dance project that explores new performance languages for spaces of great historical and artistic value, redefining them as dynamic places open to contemporary perspectives.
On Sept. 17 and 18 (11 a.m.-1 p.m.) and Sept. 19 and 20 (5-7 p.m.00), Bigi and Paoletti will work with dancers Vincenzo Criniti and Cristian Magurano of the EgriBiancoDanza Company, Chinese performer Yingyu Lyu, Taiwanese performers Lu Ying-Chien and Lee Kuan-Lin with choreographer Lai Hung-Chung of Hung Dance, and musicians Milena Punzi and Andrea Geremia of the Tempo Reale music research and production center. Florence Dance Center and PARC Performing Arts Research Center also collaborate.
In this creative journey, the relationship between body and architecture becomes essential: the dancers do not just move through the space, but make it a living interlocutor, creating a physical and perceptual interweaving. The bodies harmonize or contrast with the environment, transforming it into a sensitive landscape traversed by emotional resonances, amplified by the live music that completes the choreography.
The LA PRIMA DANZA project will then continue in Seoul, debuting at the end of October at the Nakseonjae Palace of Changdeokgung Complex, together with choreographer Ahn Aesoon and a group of Korean dancers, to conclude in Italy - in Florence, Verbania and Cagliari - in June 2026.
Damiano Ottavio Bigi, dancer and choreographer, and Alessandra Paoletti, actress, director and playwright, have been collaborating since 2013 in an artistic and pedagogical journey that weaves different languages between dance, theater and visual arts. In 2020, they founded the BIGI PAOLETTI Fritz Company, with the intention of exploring new forms of relationship between body, space and time through ever-changing narratives.
All appointments are free admission.
“The project Music and Dance selected and funded by the Ministry of Culture,” say Stefano Casciu, Regional Director National Museums of Tuscany and Marco Mozzo director of Cenacoli, “offers the extraordinary opportunity to visit some museums with the evocative musical interventions entrusted to the experience of the Florentine Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Giuseppe Lanzetta, recently identified by the Ministry as a national orchestra. On the other hand, contemporary dance, thanks to Fabbrica Europa and the Bigi Paoletti company, enters the All Saints’ Supper with a site-specific project that aims to merge the choreographic and performative aspect, carefully prepared in the same spaces, with a fascinating historical monument, lit by works of art of great quality. The review offers the public a multidisciplinary and at the same time more collected, meditative and personal visiting experience. Special thanks go to the Franciscan community of All Saints for their willingness to also make available the Cloister spaces adjacent to the museum.”
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| Concerts and a site-specific dance project with free admission in the Florentine Cenacles |
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