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recordists in residence at
itinerario festival 06
Steve Piccolo, Donata Clovis, Gak Sato - all the photos in main column by Donata C
 
 
June 22-25 2006, Itinerario Festival, Cesena, Italy (www.itinerariofestival.it). Big concert Sunday with Aidoru and Mariposa (Steve Piccolo and Gak Sato, using sounds from the days of the festival). People could check out the day-to-day sound work in the evenings at the supine outdoor cinema (lie-in?). Or listen to the mp3 files on this page (the red stuff on the right)

Field research in the openair market during the feast of St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Cesena, which just happens to coincide (almost) with Summer Solstice, showed that the most unique and curious thing about this festivity is the custom of making whistles out of red sugar in the form of a duckling, a rooster or, on occasion, Disney characters. No one seems to know exactly how this odd tradition got started.



The famous red sugar whistles.
The project found its focus on the first evening. We were recording sounds of the market, talking about the weather with people and generally enjoying ourselves. We asked the lady selling sewing machines if we could record her different stitches, the buttonhole attachment and all that. She gave us a nice demonstration. But then she looked at me and said: you foreign journalists, you should be asking people to tell you where the tradition of the red whistles comes from. There are thousands of people here every year, they all buy a whistle, and nobody knows why! So we started asking around...



Where Cesena fits into the bigger picture.
We soon surmised that the nice sewing machine lady was right. People advanced all kinds of theories, some were sure they knew the whole story, but nobody was very convincing. All amazingly cooperative, though... this town has the gift of gab. The best advice we got (and kept getting) was to ask the old folks.



Dario (of Aidoru/Itinerario) by the mixing board.
After a couple of days pieces of the story started to emerge. First of all, the St.John/solstice festival is clearly rooted in a pre-Christian pagan celebration. With that in mind, we started to notice that the festival is packed with magical symbols, not to mention tarot and palm readers. And a few pickpockets. For example, along with the whistles everyone is supposed to stock up on fresh garlic and lavender, tied up with a bow in a schizophrenically fragrant bouquet.



Bacchi da Pietra concert in the magic square.
Here's some of the real deal (including some info from Cesena websites and the local library). Thanks to the particular arrangement of the heavenly bodies, the night of San Giovanni is the shortest of the year, and represents a sort of "window" between the world of the living and that of the dead. Therefore it is a perfect moment for magic rituals and visions of the future.
In the old days, they say, it was possible to see witches and mysterious spirits roaming the town on that night, but they were not really seen as enemies. The courageous souls who prowled back streets late at night knew it would suffice to simply utter a cordial greeting: "Ben sta l'inforcato" (which I think means "the hanged man is well", though there's also the sense that it's all for the best that he's been hanged).
The symbols of the feast day include garlic (a remedy against evil eye, witches and vampires), and fragrant lavender, joined in the 1800s by red sugar whistles in the form of a duckling. The color red represents love, and the whistles were also used as a sign of courtship.



Gak chases evil spirits with his theremin.
Further research yielded some interesting hypotheses and theories along these lines, but no more hard facts. We found out that on the same feast day in relatively nearby towns people make and sell clay whistles, like ocarinas. Whistles also had the function of scaring away evil spirits, as did banging on pots and pans. In any case, the atmosphere in Cesena during the Itinerario Festival (and the feast of St. John the Baptist) was excellent, so probably the garlic and whistles really work. By the time we got through the whole town seemed to know about our little research project, and the comments kept flowing in.



Diego under the lindens during the concert.
The final concert with all the sounds from 4 days of recording in Cesena was a kind of conducted improv with the groups Aidoru and Mariposa.
For more on them check out:
http://www.aidoru.org/
http://www.trovarobato.com/



Steve does almost real-time editing of voices at Michele's house with indispensable help from Donata (not in pictures 'cause she took 'em).

For more info on the festival and local traditions and superstitions, visit Cesena and do some research of your own...













  sniffing out sounds

  why whistles?

  san giovanni question

  in the park every evening and before the final concert we broadcast the voices of people talking about the whistle controversy

  he's been coming to the fair each year since he was a kid

  speculation gets us nowhere

  conservative comment

  whistles from florence?

  cockney tradesman

  sounds better informed

  she doesn't know but you can hear the whistles

  he makes and sells whistles but doesn't know why

  she asked around but no one knows

  poetry as free thinking?

  he sells whistles and cool instruments

  exportable dreams

  making it up on the spot

  she wonders too

  why ducklings?

  helpful gentlemen

  it's good luck

  it's traditional but we don't know why

  against plastic

  more well-meant misinformation

  look but don't eat

  mixed up but closer

  advice on manufacturing

  gift for mom?

  don't ask me

  telespazio - sounds from the festival used in part one of the concert

  the amazing automated parking garage behind the pope in Cesena

  balloon vendor and kid who wants tweety-bird

  something makes a beat

  local character

  sent us to the library

  mazpegul is the name of an evil spirit that climbs in children's windows while they're sleeping and sits on their chest as they lie in bed, trying to suffocate them.

  andrea the well-informed street vendor

  kids learn to play ethnic frog instruments from one of the best street vendors

  the sewing machine lady who got us started

  children squeaking sneakers on the marble floor of a pharmacy

  watch out for mazape-ghoul

  michele's cat banishes evil spirits with nearly constant purring - the cat is completely blind by the way

  comodo e pratico (convenient and practical): during the four days of the festival there are many vendors with microphones who give demonstrations of the slices, dices, chops vegomatic variety. my favorite sells mops, he has a cordless mike

  sounds of the fair and around the city

  generators, ventilators, the hum of commerce

  archetypal soundcheck

  selling more mops

  sewing machines

  fair noise

  the serious mop rap, once he's got a few onlookers hooked. this is just an excerpt, the real performance takes about 15 minutes. if they don't buy a mop after all that they're the world's most callous ingrates.

  the magic square: churchbells, a construction site, a plane passing: something about the geometry of the place makes it sound good

  bene sta l'inforcato: happy is the man who hangs?

  start of the notes: we also asked lots of people to sing a note, any note, to make a chorus of cesena at the concert

  further comment

  the whirly ratchet known as the raganella

  she doesn't know anything (but she sells whistles)

  raganella bassa

  "i've got problems so i make problems"

  more ratchet rattles

  curiosity is a wonderful thing

  the tail of the ear: in italian people say "to see something with the tail of the eye", which would be out of the corner of your eye in english. When the festival was over we heard this broken music box at michele's place.

  some of the notes people sang for the san giovanni chorus