Playing Memories

Playing Memories is an artistic residency project designed to foster the creation and performance of original, multidisciplinary performances on an international scale.

Unique to Playing Memories fostered cross-cultural, artistic and human exchange, as well as the sharing of ideas, skills and inspiration among young artists from different corners of the world.

Eight distinct 15-day artistic residencies were produced, each hosting 15 performers, including dancers, musicians, visual artists, photographers, set designers, and other artistic figures, selected from across Italy, totaling 140 artists and performers.

During the two-week residency, the assembled team, based in one of the partner institutions, embarked on an intensive creative journey to conceive, stage, and present their own original and unprecedented multidisciplinary artistic performance. Each residency had its own leader or ideator, but the final performance is a collaborative effort, resulting from teamwork, constant interaction, and a process of collective creation.

All residencies and related performances were captured by a TV crew for the production of a TV docuseries – 2 seasons for a total of 24 episodes – released on RAI Play.

The Playing Memories is part of the NRP – MISSION 4 COMPONENT 1 – Investment 3.4 University Teaching and Advanced Skills” – CUP Code B93B24000010001 and was implemented from May 2025 to March 2026.

The residencies tooked place at Saint Louis in Rome and Milan, the Conservatory of L’Aquila, the Academy of Arts and Crafts of the Teatro alla Scala Foundation, the Cuba School of the Arts, the Academy of Performing Arts Prague, Staffordshire University, UK, and the Kazakh National Academy of Arts, Kazakhstan.

Playing Memories is not a talent show, but an individual and collective experience that through the TV docuseries offers a privileged glimpse at the world of artistic creation, at the innovative visions of the new generations who reinterpret their cultural heritage (memories), filtering it through their own lens and then staging it (playing) in their unique style and taste, searching for an original synthesis that transcends various artistic expressions, including music, dance, visual art, sculpture, performing arts, painting, and photography, so that each work can resonate with new audiences.

Docuseries

All project activities, from casting to residencies and performances, were meticulously documented by a film crew.

The footage collected was used to produce a 2-season, 24-episode docuseries chronicling the entire making of each artistic performance: from casting and the daily life during the 15-day residency to the backstage moments just before the performance and the performance itself.

The docuseries, released on RAI Play, will serve as a powerful vehicle for promoting Italy’s cultural heritage and the artists involved.

Watch the ninth performance

Guarda la nona performance