The “Tocatì” (an expression that in the local dialect means “It’s your turn”)  is the international festival of traditional street games that are also accompaigned by folkloristic music and delicious gastronomical local products.

The “Tocatì” Festival Poster

This festival occurs every year at the end of September in the Verona’s historical centre’s squares that become some veritable playgrounds completely closed to traffic. Here adults and children can play with spinning tops or with slingshots and with other ancient traditional toys.

Children playing tug-of-war in Verona

You just have to follow the road signs to reach one of the fifty playing areas that welcome every year 200.000 participants.

The particular road signs

Every year a delegation coming from a foreign country is invited in Verona to show its own traditional street games.

This is an international event entirely dedicated to pasta, one of the most representative symbols of the Italian food. This festival usually takes place in the “Stazione Marittima” of the Naples harbour in front of the magnificent Maschio Angioino.  In this wide area you will find historical tourist routes focused on pasta and on its productive processes, exhibitions, shows and tastings.

The entry of the Pasta Show

Thanks to the Circumetnea railway you will tour the Etna territory visiting all the little villages that are placed at the bottom of this big volcano. It is possible to leave from the Catania Borgo railway station or from the Giare railway station that is placed in the main Messina-Catania line. This is the best solution for those who come from Taormina or, vice versa, for those who have to arrive there.

During this characteristic trip you will admire a wonderful countryside full of citrus plantations, olive trees and prickly pears together with completely wild fields placed near the most ancient lava flows.

This service is available from Monday to Saturday while on Sunday you can make a tour organized by the Associazione Strada del Vino dell’Etna. Tripping on an ancient train called “Littorina”, you will reach many cellars where it is possible to taste wines and gastronomical products that are typical of the Etna territory. This trip starts and ends in Riposto.

The Circumetnea railway and its landscape

This festival is dedicated to Giuseppe Sinopoli who worked in Taormina as a music maker, as a doctor and as an archaeologist.

Every year there are symphonic concerts, exhibitions, meetings and screenings of movies in honour of this maestro, and the “Arturo Toscanini – Premio Giuseppe Sinopoli” prize is given to the best orchestra leader of the festival. Everything will be done thanks to the presence of the Sinopoli Chamber Orchestra.

This festival takes place in the Palazzo dei Congressi placed in the historical centre of Taormina in front of the Corvaja Palace.

The Sinopoli Chamber Orchestra

• Art and illusion. Masterpieces of trompe l’oeil from antiquity ’till the present.
  October 16, 2009 – January 24, 2010
• The Silence of the World. De Chirico, Magritte, Balthus.
  February 26-July 18, 2010
• Bronzino. Artist and Poet
  September 24, 2010 – January 23, 2011
• Angry Young Men: Picasso, Miró, Dalí
  March 11-July 17, 2011
• Ingres in Italy. The Reluctant Revolutionary
  September 23, 2011-January 22, 2012
• Green Platform. Art Ecoology Substainability
  24 april-19 july 2009
• Site-specific istallation by Yves Netzhammer “Inventories of Abstraction”
  Palazzo Strozzi Courtyard 24 april-12 july 2009
• Manipulating Reality
  CCCS | 25 September 2009 – 17 January 2010

The Strozzi Palace

The fifty-third International Art Exhibition will take place from the 7th of July to the 22th of November 2009 in the traditional seats of the Gardens (Giardini) and of the Navy Yard (Arsenale) and in other important locations of Venice.

Gardens of the Biennale

The Navy Yard

This Exhibition is called “Fare Mondi // Making Worlds” and it joins together 90 artists with new works based on different artistic languages.

Dates have been fixed by the Biennial board of directors. At the head of the Visual Art Sector there is Daniel Birnbaum who has the specific task of organizing this fifty-third International Art Exhibition.

Daniel Birnbaum is the curator of many international institutions and exhibitions and since 2001 he has been the rector of the Staedelschule in Germany: this is an international academy that conciliates the contemporary art with the development of new practices and techniques. He is also an editor of the Artforum, New York, and he has also regularly collaborated with many other magazines like Parkett and Frieze.

After his designation, Daniel Birnbaum stated:

“My recent exhibitions have been all organized through a closed collaboration with artists. The Biennial of Venice is a new kind of challenge, but the basic principle remains always the same: the artist’s vision should be at the centre of everything. The Exhibition title itself expresses my desire of highlighting the creative process. In the Exhibition all the artistic forms will be present: installations, videos and films, sculpture, performances, painting and drawing, and even a parade.”

To celebrate their brilliant career, two Golden Lions will be given to Yoko Ono and John Baldessari who are considered two of the most important figures in the art of our age.

For further information: press agency Visual Arts of the Biennial of Venice, Tel: 041 – 5218846/849  Fax 041 – 2411407, ufficiostampa@labiennale