Florence, September – October 2025

SHIFT Shaping Harmony, Innovating Forms & Thought is an innovative project funded by the Culture strand of the Creative Europe programme of the European Commission that aims to transform the way dance is experienced and presented by exploring new formats of artistic expression, community engagement, and audience interaction, involving artists, experts, and citizens from multiple EU and Mediterranean countries.

By encouraging a shift from passive observation to active participation and immersion, SHIFT focuses on exploring new spatial relationships, moving the emphasis from the “visual aesthetics” of conventional places to the dynamics of an “aesthetics of action” within adaptable, non-dedicated performative spaces.

The project, coordinated by Cie Omar Rajeh & Maqamat (France), involves Fondazione Fabbrica Europa per le arti contemporanee (Italy) and Albania Dance Meeting (Albania) as partners, in association with France Travail Scènes et Images – Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (France), Beit El Raqs (Lebanon), and the National Experimental Theatre Kujtim Spahivogli (Albania).

Included in the Fabbrica Europa 2025 programme – with Bigi/Paoletti Fritz Company, Romeo Castellucci, Roberto Castello, and the Attraverso Sant’Orsola project, this stage focuses in particular on the relationship between performance, space, and audience, fostering a shared reflection on the value of Florence’s heritage – urban, historical, architectural, and emotional – as a living and dynamic material capable of welcoming and transforming the artistic experience for spectators.

SHIFT will continue with the Creative Labs in Tirana, scheduled for January 2026, and will culminate in a major final event in Lyon in the summer of 2026

in the photo: one of the spaces of the Museo Sant’Orsola