THE FESTIVAL

The festival was in its third year and that year we had sold very few tickets in four days of performances, despite the fact that there were eight titles on the programme. At night, while we were dismantling the stages, one of the technicians said it was better to stop, unless we found a way to make the city feel that the festival was ‘its own thing’. Today’s Kilowatt was born out of that urge. No, it was not enough for us who had invented the festival to like it, rather it had to become ‘its own thing’ for the public, the city and the territory. We took this objective literally by inviting the people of Sansepolcro and the surrounding area to work with us, putting into their hands the most delicate and precious cog in such a process, which is the choice of shows. The hypothesis was (and is) madness, and as such was (and is) exposed to failure. But it unleashed a new energy around Kilowatt, an energy that was already in the name chosen for the festival, but only as unexpressed potential. This is how the Visionaries were born, an ever-growing group of ‘non-expert’ spectators who see all the videos that arrive via the call for entries that Kilowatt publishes every year. The Visionaries watch and discuss until they come to choose the shows that will make up part of the Festival programme. Then, over the years Kilowatt has become much more: it is a centre for production and production support, it is a residence for contemporary creativity, it is a place that has also opened up to experimental music, contemporary literature and the visual arts. But the ‘Visionaries’ who spend their winter evenings together to watch and discuss the DVDs of the most innovative emerging Italian companies will remain our mark of identity forever. And it is good that this is so. Because live performance must be an open democratic assembly, as it concerns our essence as citizens. Aesthetics are functional to the purpose, they are not the purpose. A festival, like the viewing of a single show, is not a parenthesis between one commitment and another in our lives: a festival and a show are part of life. Kilowatt is a festival dedicated to emerging companies on the contemporary scene (theatre, dance, performing arts, music, literature, visual arts), which takes place in Sansepolcro (Ar). The project was conceived in 2003 and has been promoted and realised by the Capotrave/Kilowatt association ever since. Since 2007, the “Visionari Selection” was born, since 2008 Kilowatt has become a structure supporting the production of theatre, dance and performing arts, since 2009 the festival has inaugurated the music section, and since 2010 the visual arts section. Over the years, CapoTrave/Kilowatt has won many awards: two Ubu Prizes, one in 2010 as best special project for Visionaries and one in 2021 to Lucia Franchi and Luca Ricci as best curatorial project; it won the Nico Garrone Prize in 2013 and the Critics’ Prize awarded annually by the National Association of Theatre Critics ANCT in 2021.