ZONA K Association

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ZONA K was born in Milan in 2011 as a cultural space dedicated to the exchange between different artistic and cultural disciplines. It hosts events and actions of theater, cinema, dance, music, visual art, with particular attention to contemporary expressions and reflections on the present. Since 2012, it has offered theater reviews for adults and children.
In 2014, in opposite trend to traditional and OFF theaters, it sets its work on thematic FOCUS and opens its gaze to the world, hosting some of European performative avant-garde artists committed to a theater that looks to the present, which involves in different forms and measures the audience, who uses technological devices for new forms of artistic enjoyment, in inhabits unconventional places.

The thematic FOCUS formula allow a visible and recognizable space in town and, on the other hand, permit to continue the activities of the association based on training, residencies for companies and artists, ever closer relations with the neighborhood, artistic and cultural research in an intercultural way, small productions and co-productions with international artists.

Since the first production of “Remote Milano” by Rimini Protokoll in 2014 (replicated in the English version during EXPO 2015), collaborations with foreign artists have followed over the years untill today: Roger Bernat, Agrupacion Senor Serrano , Milo Rau, Yan Duyvendak, Gob Squad, El Conde de Torrefiel, Willi Dorner, Berlin, NO99.

Over the years, ZONA K has activated collaborations and relationships with numerous organizations, from independent structures to the more institutional ones in the artistic, cultural and social fields. Among these: Triennale Teatro dell’Arte, Stanze, Danae Festival, Teatro Franco Parenti, Olinda/Teatro La Cucina, Mare Culturale Urbano, CLAPSpettacolo, Stratagemmi Prospettive Teatrali, Lapsus ass. promozione sociale, Festival dei Diritti, Università Cattolica (Milano), Istituto Nazionale Ferruccio Parri (Milano), Centro Studi Politica Estera e Opinione Pubblica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Università Bocconi, Asnada, cooperativa Diapason, ASSPI, Cooperativa Stripes. The collaborations are concretized in different forms: a common planning, participation in calls for financing in partnership, in reciprocal hospitality, in shared programming.

In 2016 ZONA K won Rete Critica award for Best Organizational Project of the year.

In 2017 is among the candidates selected and financed by the “MigrArti second edition” call for performing arts, with “generazioneGlocale” project, which is staged in the context of Estate Sforzesca.

In 2018 ZONA K won the Hystrio “Altre Muse” award «[…] with stubbornness and consistency, they were able to gain the trust of leading artists on the national and international scene, but also to keep a watchful eye on new groups, establishing important alliances with others city ​​realities. Attention to the performance and to a theater that speaks of contemporary are the salient features of ZONA K identity, one of the few national realities that has made of a rigorous and tenacious planning its strong point. A project that is happily realized, rather than in traditional review, in thematic FOCUS declined within macro themes. »

The activity of ZONA K over the years has been supported by: Comune di Milano, Regione Lombardia, Fondazione Cariplo, C.L.A.P.Spettacolo dal vivo, Mibac. On July 2018 obtained the support of Fondazione Cariplo with the project “Diffusione Partecipata” in partnership with Stanze, Lapsus and Stratagemmi for a widespread and participated theater and aimed above all at a target of under 30 audience. Also on July 2018 it obtained the assignment of a contribution from the Mibac for the three-year period 2018/2020, in the Promotion sector, in partnership with the Mare Culturale Urbano and Perspettive Teatrali; by the Regione Lombardia under the Single Notice, educational and cultural promotion sector, for the project “Teen Time” in collaboration with Goethe Institut, Lapsus and Cooperativa Stripes.

In the triennium 2018-2020 ZONA K is a partner of the Centro di Residenza della Lombardia, selected by Regione Lombardia, thanks to the multidisciplinary project “Intercettazioni”, presented by the aggregation of Circuito CLAPS as the leader, and Teatro delle Moire, Milano Musica and Circolo Industria Scenica as partner.

On February 2019 ZONA K wins the important call for tenders for the concession in use of the building called “Casa degli Artisti” located in Corso Garibaldi 89 / via Tommaso da Cazzaniga in Milano. The management of the marvelous three-storey building of more than 1,300 square meters is assigned to the ATS which sees ZONA K as the leader and internal reference point for theatrical art. CASA DEGLI ARTISTI will open in the autumn of 2019, 110 years after its foundation, as an interdisciplinary and international residence center, aimed to promoting and developing the interaction between arts and cultures. A place that questions the value of art as a common good and researches new forms of relationship with society and the territory through different models of participation and inclusion.

In 2021, it was one of the promoters of the “Rete degli Spazi Ibridi” (Hybrid Spaces Network), which obtained the formalization of a resolution by the Municipality of Milan to recognize and create a structured network.
The structure of ZONA K is made up exclusively by women in managerial, organizational and management roles.

 

ARTISTIC DIRECTION
Valentina Kastlunger graduated in dramaturgy at the Scuola Paolo Grassi and in political science at the University of Bologna. She founded and managed the South Tyrolean production centre ErehwoN, for which she directed several shows and directed the Aterteater festival. In Alto Adige she worked as a director for the local RAI RadioTelevisione. She has translated several texts from German into Italian, including “La mia scuola del teatro” by Ekkehard Schall for Ubu Libri. In 2011 she founded ZONA K.

Valentina Picariello has a university degree in Modern Literature. After university she collaborated with the Centre for the Study of Foreign Policy and Public Opinion at the State University of Milan. In 1998, she joined the publishing industry as editor of Encarta, Microsoft’s multimedia encyclopedia. Subsequently, she collaborated with various event organization and communication companies. In 2011 she founded ZONA K.

 

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