Association
An independent, public, and visionary cultural organization that for over fifty years has made artistic research a space for engagement with the community and with the world.
Santarcangelo dei Teatri is a non-profit cultural association founded in 1994 and recognized as a legal entity in 2015. It was established through the joint initiative of several local public authorities to ensure continuity and long-term vision for the cultural project of Santarcangelo Festival, active since 1971. The current member entities are the municipalities of Santarcangelo di Romagna, Rimini, Poggio Torriana, Longiano, Sogliano al Rubicone and the Republic of San Marino. Today, the Association is a center for the dissemination of contemporary performing arts, committed to research and the support of artistic production, and active throughout the year through artist residencies, training programs, and local and international projects. It manages public spaces—including Il Lavatoio and C’Entro Supercinema—as vibrant places of creation and exchange.
At the heart of its activities is Santarcangelo Festival, the longest-running Italian festival dedicated to contemporary multidisciplinary performance and one of Europe’s leading events for theater and dance. Each summer, it transforms the city into a temporary, collective laboratory of artistic, political, and social coexistence. Rooted in its local context yet connected to an international network, the Association works to foster artistic freedom, support emerging creativity, encourage dialogue among diverse audiences, and contribute—through culture—to a more equitable and inclusive vision of society.
Santarcangelo dei Teatri – Presidents:
1995 Giorgio Boccaccini
1995 Fabio Biondi
1995—1996 Fabio Maioli
1996—2007 Pier Silverio Pozzi
2007—2008 Sandro Pascucci
2008—2010 Giuseppe Chicchi
2010—2011 Mauro Morri
2011—2015 Roberto Naccari
2015—2019 Alice Parma
dal 2019 Giovanni Boccia Artieri
The current Board of Directors of the Festival is composed of:
Giovanni Boccia Artieri – President
Zoe Baldazzi – Counselor
Ludovica Parmeggiani – Counselor
Mission
We design artistic and cultural practices that connect the local and the international, support contemporary creation, and cultivate spaces of encounter among artists, audiences, and communities.
We organize Santarcangelo Festival, the longest-running Italian festival dedicated to contemporary performing arts, and develop ongoing cultural initiatives throughout the year. We support artists through residencies, co-productions, and mentorship pathways; present multidisciplinary programs; and curate training and mediation activities for diverse audiences, with particular attention to young people and local communities. We inhabit public space as a shared place in which to build meaningful relationships and experiment with forms of active cultural citizenship.
Vision
To build temporary, open, and shared worlds around contemporary artistic creation, in order to imagine new forms of coexistence.
Santarcangelo dei Teatri envisions a community in motion that gathers around contemporary performing arts to explore the languages of the present, question the urgencies of the world, and experiment with new ways of being together. Through the Festival and activities taking place throughout the year, the Association promotes a cultural vision that weaves together research and a plurality of perspectives, grounded in the values of inclusivity, equity, and sustainability. It believes in the transformative power of art, in the freedom of artists, in supporting emerging creativity, and in building public spaces capable of generating dialogue, closeness, and political imagination.