Laboratorio MAI + con F. De Isabella e Lele Tori
03 /04 May 2025
Bergamo
© Lisa Nichi
Workshop
MAI +
with F. De Isabella and Lele Tori
MAI +
with F. De Isabella and Lele Tori
Meetings and Locations:
- Saturday, May 3rd, from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM at Club Ricreativo Pignolo (CRP), Via Sant’Elisabetta 11, Bergamo
- Sunday, May 4th, from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM, an itinerant journey through urban space
Here’s a small preview of the program for the 12th edition of Festival ORLANDO: this year, the Festival expands beyond its traditional boundaries, with local initiatives already launched in October, as we’ve shared in previous months. Some of the offerings during the Festival will be the result of collective creative processes. We believe that culture should be experienced through various forms of participation, which is why we invite you to contribute to the creation of this edition, enriching the Festival with your presence and sharing moments together. In March, we announce three workshops with national and international artists. We invite you to register by April 20, as spots are limited!
MAI+ is both an acronym for an invented museum and an exclamation that takes a stance on contemporary issues. This workshop, aimed at people aged 15 to 25, invites participants to explore the city and seek out random signs and elements, which will be given new meaning through a process of re-signification. The goal is to collectively create new imaginaries about the city and its public space, reclaiming the power of observation, listening, and exposure—while also attempting to make visible what lies at the margins of attention.
INFO
The workshop is open to young people aged 15 to 25. Participation is free but with limited spots; reservations are required by April 20th via email at prenotazioni@orlandofestival.it. The other workshops in the program are Oblio by and with Muna Mussie and Hot Bodies Choir by and with Gérald Kurdian.
F. DE ISABELLA
F. De Isabella (Milan, 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Milan. After graduating in Cinematography and Photography from the Scuola Civica di Cinema in Milan, in 2009, they co-founded the Milanese collective Strasse, which worked in the field of performance art in public spaces for ten years. That same year, they presented their first short film, Coming Out, at the 23rd MIX Festival in Milan and Some Prefer Cake (Bologna).
F. De Isabella (Milan, 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Milan. After graduating in Cinematography and Photography from the Scuola Civica di Cinema in Milan, in 2009, they co-founded the Milanese collective Strasse, which worked in the field of performance art in public spaces for ten years. That same year, they presented their first short film, Coming Out, at the 23rd MIX Festival in Milan and Some Prefer Cake (Bologna).
Since 2007, they have also been active as a DJ under the pseudonym ubi broki, performing in occupied and liberated spaces, clubs, and festivals, offering electro-romantic-queer sets. They have collaborated in Italy and abroad with Far Festival des Arts Vivants (CH), Vooruit Kunstencentrum (BE), Festival de Marseille (FR), Santarcangelo Festival (ITA), Short Theatre (ITA), Centrale Fies (ITA), and Triennale di Milano (ITA), where they were an associated artist from 2017 to 2020.
In recent years, they have worked on the sound design of performances by Giorgia Ohanesian Nardin, Chiara Bersani, Titta Raccagni, Maddalena Fragnito, Collettivo Mine, Francesca Foscarini, and collaborated as a DJ with Cristina Crystal Rizzo and Daniele Ninarello, performing at Kampnagel (DE), Rencontres Chorégraphiques (FR), Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo (CO), Black Box Teater (NO), HAU Hebbel am Ufer (DE), IETM (Madrid), and Alkantara Festival - Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (PT).
They have been questioning and challenging artistic production practices through a transfeminist and queer perspective. Between 2019 and 2021, they shot and edited a 40-minute film for a project by Giorgia Ohanesian Nardin, filmed entirely in Armenia between Yerevan and the regions still under Armenian control after the genocide, just before the recent attacks.
In 2021, they presented DICIOTTANNI - simultaneously an arch of 18 years and being 18 years old at Centrale Fies, the first part of their new work, which debuted in 2022 at BASE Milano. That same year, they won the Cavalcavia public art project call, promoted by BASE Milano, Milano Mediterranea, and Culture and Projects. In 2023, they premiered their latest project MAI+ inside FUORI! produced by ERT, later re-presented in 2024 in its Milanese version, produced by BASE Milano.
Their second short film, REAL LIFE TEST, was selected for the MiX Festival Internazionale di Cinema LGBTQ+ e Cultura Queer di Milano. They are currently working on a new video project, TELE.
🔗 fdeisabella.com
LELE TORI
Born in March 1982 in a small village in the Ossola Valley, near the Swiss border, Lele Tori spent his childhood and adolescence largely in solitude, drawing, dancing, inventing stories, learning to play the piano, and talking to his cat.
Born in March 1982 in a small village in the Ossola Valley, near the Swiss border, Lele Tori spent his childhood and adolescence largely in solitude, drawing, dancing, inventing stories, learning to play the piano, and talking to his cat.
After high school, he explored various university paths before enrolling in set design at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he fell in love with theater. He then moved to Milan for 13 years. At around 20, he encountered Comuna Baires, an independent research theater group founded in Buenos Aires in 1969, influenced by Grotowski, Strasberg, and Meisner. He remained there until the age of 27, studying and teaching at the theater school, performing, and participating in self-produced shows and public debates in Italy, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, and Cuba.
In 2007, he became a parent of two children while simultaneously deepening his research in dance and performance art, especially through his work with the Milan-based collective Strasse. In 2009, he left Comuna Baires and began working as a sous-chef in a restaurant while exploring alternative parenting models beyond dominant norms.
In 2013, he and a group of people, including his children and ex-partner, bought an old villa in the Oltrepò Pavese countryside to experiment with alternative models of life and sustenance. There, they built a theater space and an artist residency. From 2016, they ran L’Alaska, a research school investigating the artistic necessity of human expression.
After leaving the restaurant industry, they worked for a Milanese cooperative focused on integrating people with cognitive and psychiatric disabilities into the workforce, bringing them into contact with psycho-social centers, day centers, and high schools. They began working with the body in disability and educational contexts, enrolled in Educational Sciences in Turin, and fell in love with bell hooks' vision of education. They dream of a future society that is plural, communal, sentimental—beyond just intellectual, scientific, and individualistic values.
In 2022, they auditioned for choreographer Daniele Ninarello and became part of the new project Healing Together, which premiered in November 2023 and is currently on tour. They collaborate with Ninarello on workshops and projects with citizens and young people in Italy and Europe, focusing on protest, the colonized body, and climate change. Recently, they have moved deeper into choreographic research, attending Elena Giannotti’s workshops.
Their artistic work has never stopped, nor has their collaboration with F. De Isabella, co-founder of Strasse, with whom they share artistic perspectives, research, dreams, joys, and struggles. In Diciottanni, MAI+, and TELE, they act as performer, dramaturg, and co-researcher.