Via P. Gili n. 4
90138 Palermo PA
Italy
- Arts
Tavola Tonda Association is a School of Traditional Music and Dances founded in 2010, in Palermo, Sicily. We have a recording studio, a lutherie, 4 classrooms, 1 stage, a permanent exhibition of traditional Mediterranean musical instruments and a performance/dance hall. Our Team includes:
• 1 full time Art director and President
• 1 a part-time Dancer, percussionist, traditional dances teacher.
• 12 volunteers
Our average annual operating budget is € 150k, and our work is funded by earned income (e.g. rentals, fee for service, etc.), Foundations, Government Donors, National funds. We deliver a rich weekly program of 5 traditional dance classes and 8 traditional music instruments classes engaging and training around 200 people, intensive workshops and seminars of traditional dances, vocal technique, frame drumming techniques and drum making workshops, Balfolk dances events with live bands. We partnered with National and local Organisations like Arci, Ballarò Buskers Aps, Pride Palermo, Associazione Musicale Etnea.
Tavola Tonda Association is a School of Traditional Music and Dances founded in 2010, in Palermo, Sicily. Our mission is to
foster and scale up inclusive artistic and cultural practices in the local contexts to engage and empower communities in a
cross generational exchange of knowledge, by protecting, conserving, restoring the cultural heritage of Sicily and the
broader Mediterranean music and dancing.
3 main objectives:
1-Promote better access and engagement of the community with the cultural heritage of Sicily and the broader
Mediterranean music and dancing and improve its protection, enhancement and restoration.
2-Regain community public space access, while generating new paths for encounters, where audiences, local and
international artists gather to engage with one another, developing new content and alliances for cooperative social
thinking and the exchange of ideas.
3- Promoting gender equality and human rights focusing on the practice of women collective performance through
dedicated training and cross cultural exchange of artistic practices, with the aim of actively repositioning the role of
women as ritual officers and performers in traditional culture and music throughout the spectrum of the mediterranean
cultural crossroads.
Today, Tavola Tonda delivers a rich weekly program of 5 traditional dance classes and 8 traditional music instruments
classes: frame drum, guitar, mandolin and accordion, engaging and training around 200 people, between youth and adults.
Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, we also offered music instruments courses of flute, violin, Arab oud, and the traditional
singing and vocal technique and training course, reaching more than 400 people. The health crisis linked to the COVID-19
pandemic had a profound impact on the entire global cultural ecosystem. The mobility restrictions and confinement
measures drastically curtailed access to culture and have disrupted the cultural sector as a whole. By March 2020, our inperson classes, events, concerts and performances were cancelled or postponed. Building on the impact and considering
the still challenging context post-COVID, we are still recovering and implementing our activities and complementarities.
In 2022/23 our classes have been complemented by 10 intensive workshops and seminars of traditional dances, vocal
technique, frame drumming techniques and drum making workshops led by many of the icons of the Italian and
international traditional and ethnic music scenes, engaging more than 300 people.
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Since 2017, Tavola Tonda has been organising Sponde Sonore Festival, one of the most relevant festivals dedicated to
traditional, ethnic and folk music in Italy, hosting live music featuring national and international artists as well as art
installations and workshops. Over 6 months, more than 2100 audiences, as well as visitors from other parts of Italy,
Europe, and beyond, take part in 17 festival’s concerts and other cultural activities.
Before the Covid pandemic, Balfolk dances events in Tavola Tonda were started with our first big ball in March of 2011
and since then many people have contributed to the development of this community based event. In 2022/23 we organized
8 Balfolk dances events with live bands, sometimes visiting from out of town, often focusing on a specific regional music
and dance, and open to all to participate. More than 700 people attended them.
Over the last 2 years we also organised 10 Milonga (Tango) evenings reaching over 1200 people, we also hosted 8 book
launch events attended by 800 people and 10 Stand Up Comedy evenings more than 1000 people.
Tavola Tonda is also active in production work to create a cohesive and entertaining experience for the audience, while
raising the necessary funds to finance the production. Several theatre and music performances were produced along the
year. The Choròs project, an all female frame drumming performance collective, is also a produced performance, a
workshop incubator and spearhead into new research projects. One such project is the Euro Mediterranean Frame Drum
Map. A google map powered collective project born to gather all the known documents and evidence of female frame
drumming from the proto and prehistoric periods until present times in the broader Mediterranean area, the project
complemented by a growing bibliography provides a great starting point to anyone interested in the frame drumming
traditions of the area.
The safeguarding and valorisation of the cultural heritage of Sicily and the broader Mediterranean music and dancing
through the engagement and the participation of our communities by inclusive artistic and cultural practices is our way to
rely on creativity and develop heritage-led community development. Through our activities youth and adults will be
engaged in proposing and developing artwork as creative solutions to local challenges. Creativity can then be understood
as ways of expanding what we already know, understand and can do.Through its creative imagination and ingenious
rebirth, art tells a story that has the power to alter and positively influence people’s perspectives and opinions while also
instilling values that benefit all, no matter how our backgrounds or beliefs may differ. In one of our traditional dance
classes, for example, even though each participant is learning a fixed movement vocabulary, since learning is primarily
kinaesthetic, each individual makes their own connections to the idea of the movement. Each participant brings into the
class her/his own individuality, which when merged with the seemingly repetitive or rigid movement code of the dance
style, reflects the personality of the dancer.
We would contribute to the Network to keep engaging the youth in our community in Art and culture, while creating a new
generation who may go on to produce works that raise awareness of the issues they feel passionate about. We will
support the facilitation of artistic Residencies with North African and Southern European traditional artists, where artists
could work on a project changing perspective and in the meantime they could also give workshops on their specialty in the
communities and contribute to improve our internationalisation.
The participation in the Network will give us the opportunities to become member of a community of practice, bringing our musicians, dancers, young people and adults '' into the tent” and creating a space of exchange, co-creation and inclusion, while create synergies and complementarities with national and international likeminded organisations to create a movement of Creativity for Social Change. Getting in a new network comes with a new set of collaboration possibilities. Letting us cross borders and cross pollinate our talents and expertise with that of others, strengthening the skills and capabilities necessary to overcome our current struggles. Being part of an extensive platform born of the combined efforts of research, education and artistic activities for the transmission of tradition and exploration of innovation,can bring people together across borders, in a safe space where so many languages, cultural practices, collective memories, beliefs and perspectives coexist in close proximity.