Rediscovering 70s Italy: A Cheeky Exploration of History and Music
By: Your Favourite Comedic Ensemble
Well, well, well! It looks like Cascina is about to be hit with a wave of nostalgia wrapped in a delicate package of music and political discourse. It’s like Italy’s version of a bottle of Chianti paired with a plate of spaghetti carbonara—deliciously indulgent and slightly too rich for your own good! Today at 6 PM, those who attend the P. Impastato Library will witness ‘The Hot Season – Itineraries for Words and Notes in Italy in the Seventies’. Yes, folks, that’s right! We’re traveling back to a time when bell bottoms were all the rage, and the protests were, well…just as loud as the music!
Fabrizio Bartelloni and Francesco Bottai are the masterminds behind this spectacle, promising a reflection on a tumultuous period in Italy that was bursting with revolutionary fervor. It’s a time that, if you weren’t careful, could throw you into a political debate faster than you could say “Mamma mia!” According to our brilliant authors (who I assume shine as bright as the Italian sun), this era was, and I quote, “a decisive watershed between the post-war society and the contemporary one.” Not exactly the Catcher in the Rye, but hey, who doesn’t love a good watershed moment?!
The ‘70s in Italy were a chaotic concoction of political struggle, social upheaval, and the vibrant tapestry of music, where songwriters like Gaber, Guccini, De André, and Battiato were not just creating melodies but crafting anthems for change. It’s the kind of period that could ignite a heated debate at a family dinner—one person talking about the bikini revolution, while another passionately expounds on the merits of neo-avant-garde art. And let’s face it, those ideas are practically boiling over like a pot of pasta left too long on the stove!
The show is divided into a trilogy of sessions—like The Lord of the Rings, but with more existentialism and far fewer orcs. Kicking off today, we’ll experience “The Love Song in the Seventies.” Ah, love; that sweet respite from the chaos of life, akin to sipping a Limoncello while lounging on a sun-drenched terrace throughout the Amalfi Coast. But don’t let this deceive you! It’s all part of a grander scheme to encourage audiences to ponder how understanding our history enriches our perception of the ‘new’ or, as we say nowadays, what’s trending on Instagram.
Mark your calendars, because on November 17th, we dive headfirst into “The Political Song in the Seventies.” Now I can’t imagine a more riveting topic for those who enjoy discussing politics, or as I like to call it—how to lose friends and alienate people over a cappuccino!
And if that doesn’t keep the self-appointed armchair experts busy enough, the series will wrap up on December 22nd with “Social Song in the Seventies.” Imagine a room filled with Italians dissecting lyrics like they’re Da Vinci’s latest masterpiece—“No, you see, when he says ‘Femminismo’ he’s really referring to social liberation!” Yes, darling, but did you hear that bass line?
A mix of story and music to rediscover the Italy of the seventies. “The hot season – itineraries for words and notes in Italy in the seventies” will be staged today at 6pm at the P. Impastato Library in Cascina, the show that Fabrizio Bartelloni and Francesco Bottai will bring to the stage as part of the new season of ” Books along the walls”, the annual review of cultural events organized by the Municipality of Cascina with the patronage of the Tuscany Region. The idea of a reflection on the political, social and cultural atmosphere of Italy in those years was born, say the authors, “from the belief that that period of our country’s recent history was not only a decisive watershed between the post-war society and the contemporary one, but also a synthesis and dialectic between ideas and ideologies, innovation and conservation, in which themes, reflections and ferments of extraordinary relevance can be traced”.
Years of political struggle, demonstrations, protests but also the years of feminism, of the great battles for civil rights, of songwriters, such as Gaber, Guccini, De André, De Gregori, Conte, Dalla, Battiato, Gaetano. The objective is to provoke “a reflection on how knowledge of the past is useful not only for deciphering, but also for enriching the new, or presumed new, that advances”. The event will be divided into three different meetings on a monthly basis: it starts today with “The love song in the seventies”, continues on November 17th with “The political song in the seventies”, and will end on December 22nd with “Social song in the seventies”. Free entry.
S.T.
