IRA - International Institute for Performing Arts It's an international platform for dance and contemporary performing arts. To fill a cultural void and create new connections.
IRA Festival brings to the stage both national and international productions, and for the first time in Southern Italy, presents choreographers and performers who represent the new trends in contemporary performing arts. The goal is to create opportunities for discovery and perspective, both for audiences and industry professionals. IRA is destruction, vision, and creation — a bridge between territories and generations. It is an attempt to build a new model, to chart a path for the artistic institutions of the future.
IRA is a project for territorial rebalancing, aiming to bring Calabria closer to the rest of Italy and Europe.
Soverato is not just the place that hosts IRA — it is part of its identity. Overlooking the Ionian Sea, with its crystal-clear waters and strong tourist vocation, Soverato is a vibrant city in transformation, ready to welcome new visions.
IRA moves across theaters, open-air arenas, abandoned buildings, seaside hotels, and urban corners, transforming space into stage, encounter, and possibility.
The natural and human landscapes intertwine, becoming the living material of the performative experience.
The territory is not a backdrop — it is a co-protagonist.
networks
blOOm, network dedicated to one-on-one creation founded in 2025 out of a shared vision by Fondazione Armunia, IRA Institute, Santarcangelo dei Teatri, Sardegna Teatro, and Triennale Milano Teatro, returns for its second year of activities, featuring a schedule of residencies and public presentations hosted within the programming of the five partner institutions. Following the invitation extended to Muna Mussie, the network has chosen this year to support the research work of the artistic duo composed of Gaetano Palermo and Michele Petrosino.
blOOm invites audiences to an intimate and personal experience—designed for one spectator at a time—prioritizing direct exchange between the companies and the public. The initiative unfolds by proposing a shift in perspective within artistic creation: not for large-scale productions, but an intimate dimension that deconstructs traditional dynamics of viewing and participation. Closeness, depth, and dedication: these are three key words in the development of the initiative, which each year supports an Italian company in creating unconventional works. The only rule: one person at a time.
Starting from shared concerns in cultural policy and common aesthetic horizons, it affirms its members’ commitment to experimenting with new forms of collaboration to promote and strengthen the performing arts scene in Italy and abroad.
Established in 2012 as Finestate Festival, the Network was created with the aim of developing a national framework for the co-production of Italian artists and the support of international projects, in partnership with major European Cultural Institutes.
The current IN Italia International Network – Network for the International Development of the Performing Arts is part of a long-term initiative aimed at fostering cooperation, co-design, and the circulation of international artists in Italy, as well as promoting Italian artists abroad. The network currently includes eleven theater organizations operating across the national territory, with the possibility of future expansion.
The Network defines its area of interest as the promotion and support of that segment of the contemporary scene which explores the possible forms of dance and performing arts in relation to citizens and communities — in public spaces, relational contexts, non-conventional venues, and urban, natural, rural, and peripheral landscapes.
This area of the performing arts encourages the development of new fields of research, innovative artistic practices, and experimental languages that generate a variety of cultural outputs beyond conventional live performance formats — giving rise to radical and forward-thinking cultural proposals. It is also closely connected to themes such as the environment, citizenship, urban regeneration, and social cohesion.
The network currently includes thirty-two theatre organizations operating across the country, with the potential for future expansion.
TEAM
General Direction
Pietro Monteverdi
Artistic Direction
Settimio Pisano
Pietro Monteverdi
Administration and logistics
Annalisa Grisi
Production
Chiara Cucca
support
Eva Luna Betelli
Technical direction
Mattia Bagnoli
Head of machinery department
Alex Carnevali
Head of sound department
Giacomo Calli
Communication
Martina Chiocca
Press office
Anna Trapasso
Graphic design
Studio Co-Co
Photo and video productions
Cristina Gavello
Isabella Marino
Stage photos
Angelo Maggio
Box office
Giorgia Magro
Technical team
Gerardo Bagnoli
Antonio di Miceli
Gabriele Gugliara
Giacomo Ungari
Giovanni Macis
Nicola Sawicki
Simone Servodidio
Viviana Rella
Thanks to all the interns and trainees who volunteer their work
