II. Structure
RegionalE RegionalE is a platform that will increase the visibility of 80 local festivals, cultural, touristic and social projects from the entire Plovdiv region. It will highlight and celebrate the diversity of European culture, and the positive effects may be able to offer a remedy to European regions with similar problems of depopulation and aging. Plovdiv is located between two of the most important mountain ranges on the Balkans – the Rhodope Mountains and Stara Planina (also called the Balkans, which gave the entire peninsula its name). Although the villagers in these mountainous areas have preserved their specific traditions to date, their songs, customs and dances are in danger of vanishing when the older generation can no longer pass them on to the younger ones due to depopulation caused by unemployment and poor infrastructure. The RegionalE cluster includes a series of projects that will offer innovative strategies to preserve and present this variety of traditions, arts and crafts with the active participation of local people in collaboration with European artists and anthropologists. Plovdiv 2019 will focus on creating mobile apps, touristic routes and transportation methods to promote the events as well as a digital art map of the region providing information about current events.
EUROPEAN FAIRY-TALES IN THE RHODOPE MOUNTAINS The European Fairy-Tales is a project presenting storytelling traditions from all around Europe as a way to connect people from different generations, ethnicities, countries, and regions. The project aims at preserving the rich narrative tradition of Europe by collecting fairy-tales, fables, myths, and stories from all parts of the continent, and placing them in a contemporary context. Together with our international partners La maison du conte Bruxelles, La maison du conte France, Aprika (Latvia), Théatre de Chemins (France), Fabula Storytelling (Sweden) we will present the rich diversity of European storytelling and its common origins to locals and tourists in and around different villages in the Rhodope Mountains. Stages of the project development: ► Local and European artists and anthropologists will compile an archive of rare and unique songs and fairy-tales from
different regions and an interactive website will be created where users can experience the fairy-tales in an interactive format; ► Workshops between participating international artists will transform the collected material into a series of artistic interventions in the mountain villages. An example of this will be the Rhodope Labyrinth project by the Bulgarian theatre company 4TUNES in collaboration with international partners such as FLUXUS 2, UNIVERSITUR, and Asociatia Smart for Change which will create interactive sensory-labyrinth performances, based on anthropological studies of the region. An online platform will document and support the organisation of the different stages of the project. The work with local contributors and audiences will build capacities and develop new practices for cultural participation. ► Processing the collected material into a travelling-theatre programme, storytelling performances and concerts which will be presented on different routes throughout the Rhodope Mountains. ► The climax of the festival will be in the Rhodope village Gela with intercultural projects such as site-specific installations,
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Regional Festivals