Milo and Bruno tell the story · IterCulture APS · 12–28 October 2026
575 short performances, a special correspondent and far too many shieldbugs
The call closes with a record number of applications, Serena wins TOTOcorti, Orazio flies to the Canary Islands, and a performance takes shape in the streets of San Berillo. Back at the office, someone keeps finding shieldbugs nestled in Bruno’s fur.
BRUNO — Milo, I need to report a very serious situation.
MILO — Has something happened at the office?
BRUNO — Guests keep turning up without an appointment.
MILO — Artists? Arts professionals? People interested in our projects?
BRUNO — Shieldbugs.
MILO — Oh.
BRUNO — They settle on me. Without asking permission. And nobody does a thing, because everyone is busy on calls with people on the other side of the planet.
Bruno has a point. After the first days of October in Ljubljana, Badolato and Petralia, IterCulture’s office is once again where deadlines, projects, people, international calls and constantly changing plans converge. The calendar says the year is drawing to a close; the office, apparently, hasn’t noticed.
A competition within the Competition: TOTOcorti
BRUNO — So how many applications were we supposed to get for the twelfth International Competition?
MILO — It depends who you asked.
BRUNO — Shouldn’t there be just one answer?
MILO — Once the call closed, yes. But before that, some members of the selection committee, staff and IterCulture members started making predictions. That’s how TOTOcorti began.
BRUNO — You were betting on artists’ applications?
MILO — We were having fun trying to guess a number. And suddenly we all became forecasting experts.
The call for Teatri Riflessi 12, which opened on 27 July, remained open until 5 pm on 15 October 2026. Proposals came in from every inhabited continent. Some predicted a total close to the previous year’s; others expected a dramatic rise. Milo joined in too, predicting 529 applications with rather questionable statistical confidence.
This was neither a second selection committee nor a parallel selection process. It was a cheerful way of sharing the suspense among people who would then have the very real task of reading and watching all those applications.
Applications by the 15 October deadline. That is 36 more than the 539 received the previous year (+6.7%). Seventeen arrived in the final half-hour alone.
difference: 5
difference: 8
difference: 18
BRUNO — Serena was out by five. FIVE.
MILO — And she won.
BRUNO — Peppe?
MILO — Six hundred. Fourth place.
BRUNO — And you?
MILO — Ninth. I was out by forty-six.
BRUNO — So Serena and Peppe, who are doing their placements with you, both did better than you.
MILO — Can we move on to the photographs?
See all 23 TOTOcorti predictions
| Place | Participant | Prediction | Difference from 575 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Serena | 570 | −5 |
| 2 | Simona | 583 | +8 |
| 3 | Dario | 557 | −18 |
| 4 | Peppe | 600 | +25 |
| 5 | Valerio V. | 540 | −35 |
| 6 | Ilenia | 537 | −38 |
| 7 | Massi | 535 | −40 |
| 8 | Sabrina | 532 | −43 |
| 9 | Milo | 529 | −46 |
| 10 | Emanuela | 525 | −50 |
| 11 | Buta | 522 | −53 |
| 12 | Giuliana | 515 | −60 |
| 13 | Dario and Roberta | 513 | −62 |
| 14 | Orazio | 510 | −65 |
| 15 | Valerio S. | 485 | −90 |
| 16 | Claudia VS | 480 | −95 |
| 17 | Mariella | 460 | −115 |
| 18 | Robertavenera | 450 | −125 |
| 19 | Chiara | 447 | −128 |
| 20 | Fasona | 428 | −147 |
| 21 | Sineri | 407 | −168 |
| 22 | Wolly | 396 | −179 |
| 23 | Christel | 385 | −190 |
Serena Grasso came first, Simona Trovato second and Dario D’Agata third. But the real result, of course, is not the podium: it is 575 artistic proposals that now deserve time, attention and a thoughtful selection process.
15 October, 5 pm. Time to open the bottle
For the application deadline, Ciliegine changed its usual slot and went live on Thursday 15 October at 4.45 pm. In the studio were Robertavenera Gambino, Valerio Verzin and Giuliana Trovato; joining remotely were Luisa Cuttini e Mario Gumina from Circuito CLAPS, together with their team in Lombardy.
They announced an important new collaboration. As part of the 2027 Competition, two projects will have an opportunity to enter Circuito CLAPS’s 2027/28 programme and a further project may be offered an artistic residency with IntercettAzioni – the Artist Residency Centre of Lombardy, led by CLAPS. These were not awards already assigned: they were opportunities that would emerge from encountering the work itself.
A bottle left unopened since the CLAPS team visited the July festival had been waiting for precisely this moment. At 5 pm, submissions closed. The bottle was opened. Everyone raised a glass. And, a moment later, somebody remembered that all 575 short performances would have to be watched.
BRUNO — Three months just to open a bottle?
MILO — There was an announcement to share and a deadline to wait for.
BRUNO — And now there are 575 performances to watch.
MILO — Exactly.
BRUNO — I think you should have saved a second bottle.
Orazio, our special correspondent in the Canary Islands
BRUNO — Hold on, Milo. What about Orazio? Has he disappeared again?
MILO — He hasn’t disappeared. He’s in Gran Canaria.
BRUNO — Another island?
MILO — This time he’s attending the 31st edition of MASDANZA, the international contemporary dance festival in the Canary Islands.
BRUNO — Is he our special correspondent?
MILO — As always. He goes to discover works, meet artists and get to know the people who programme dance. And those connections need not remain on the island where they began.
BRUNO — I did see a photo of him on the beach, though.
MILO — The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
In Gran Canaria, MASDANZA reached its 31st editionin 2026, with a programme running from 1 to 24 October, including competitions, performances and gatherings of artists and international arts professionals. For IterCulture, it is a chance to sustain an existing relationship: attending festivals and professional platforms means getting to know companies’ work and speaking with people who can help it reach new audiences and places.
Orazio Morace was once again representing IterCulture far from Mount Etna, following September’s professional events. There he is in the photos, standing in front of the MASDANZA banners; there is a group photograph of delegates; and there are also the moments when the programme allows a little time off.
One of the loveliest photographs shows him with Natalia Casorati on the beach, with the sand, sunshine and Canary Islands landscape all around them. It is not a picture to pass off as another official event: simply a shared memory from a day off. Those moments, too, belong to the friendships and connections that grow through working in live performance.
BRUNO — So Orazio watched performances, met other professionals and even found time to go to the seaside.
MILO — Apparently so.
BRUNO — While I stayed at the office with the shieldbugs.
MILO — Everyone has their own international mission.
BRUNO — If we ever open an IterCulture office in the Canary Islands, I insist on being head of beach relations.
Meanwhile, at the office: Serena, Peppe and the wild world of funding calls
As some journeys end and others continue, the office is anything but empty. Valerio Verzin, Robertavenera Gambino and Giuliana Trovato are juggling projects, funding applications, phone calls, online meetings, deadlines and artists to get back to. Some days one call ends just as another begins, perhaps with someone joining from the other side of the world.
Often right in the middle of it all are Serena Grasso and Peppe Battiato, who are doing placements with IterCulture. They do not just witness the finished results: they get involved in the side of cultural work that audiences rarely see, from gathering information and organising activities to discussing ideas and solving problems. An intense placement, in other words. Perhaps a little too intense, judging by the atmosphere in the office.
BRUNO — Milo, Giuliana has seven windows open on her computer.
MILO — Seven? Sounds like a quiet day to me.
BRUNO — Valerio’s in a meeting. Robertavenera’s writing to someone thousands of miles away. Serena and Peppe are working. And there’s a shieldbug on my head.
MILO — You could ask it to move.
BRUNO — I’ve already explained that this is not an artistic residency.
MILO — And what did it say?
BRUNO — It asked for an extension.
When we tell the story of IterCulture, the days without an audience deserve a place too: the days when a project becomes possible because someone takes a call, supports an artist, learns a new job or stays in the office to sort out an unexpected problem.
San Berillo. Look first, then move
That same week, in Catania, AZIONIfuoriPOSTO returned to work in San Berillo. Silvia Dezulian and Filippo Porro’s company had already worked with IterCulture in October 2025 on Oltrepassare, and again in March 2026 with Sogni al campo – un attraversamento. During those stays, they had also begun preparing the research that would take them into the neighbourhood.
From 20 to 23 October , the workshop for PERSPECTIVA San Berillotook shape with local performers, alongside fieldwork carried out with Trame di Quartiere. The public sharing was scheduled for 24 October, as part of Riflessi d’Autunno.
BRUNO — But why did they take pictures of a wall and a street corner before dancing?
MILO — Because they were trying to observe the neighbourhood. They weren’t looking for a backdrop: its details, words and the routes people take became part of the research.
BRUNO — And those sheets covered in words?
MILO — They record impressions from before and after the workshop. Traces of what the participants noticed and how they made sense of the experience.
BRUNO — So they didn’t simply bring along a show they’d already made.
MILO — No. And that makes quite a difference to how you work.
San Berillo is not a neighbourhood that can be reduced to a photograph. Its urban and social history is complex, and its residents and relationships existed long before the artists arrived. The work of Trame di Quartiere, and the contribution of Maria Chiara Salmeri, help everyone recognise that context and develop a relationship with it that is anything but improvised.
The photographs taken by the performers are a small archive of the process: what they chose to notice before working with movement, presence and relationships in public space.
23 October. Ciliegine goes live from San Berillo
The nineteenth episode of Ciliegine was broadcast while the work was still under way. Robertavenera was at Trame di Quartiere with Filippo Porro and Maria Chiara Salmeri; Dario and Giuliana joined from the IterCulture office. They discussed the project, but above all the questions behind it: how do you enter an urban space that already has a life of its own? How do you develop research with people, rather than simply in front of them?
For the story of PERSPECTIVA this conversation is particularly valuable: it documents the research as it happens, before anyone knows what the following day’s outcome will be.
24 October. The research takes to the streets
The next day, PERSPECTIVA San Berillo met the public. The sharing moved through urban space, bringing performers’ bodies into relation with squares, streets, walls and people. The photographs capture the performance and the final applause. They cannot tell the whole story of the workshop, but they offer a glimpse of its public, shared outcome.
BRUNO — So this isn’t simply a performance brought to San Berillo.
MILO — It is work developed through San Berillo too, with time spent here, a workshop, support from Trame di Quartiere and an encounter with the public.
BRUNO — Then can we tell the story of the photographs taken before the show?
MILO — We should. Otherwise all we’d preserve of a research process would be the final applause.
For anyone who wants to explore the whole process, there are also pages about Oltrepassare, Sogni al campo and the public sharing of PERSPECTIVA San Berillo.
October isn’t over yet
BRUNO — So we closed a call, crowned Serena champion, sent Orazio to the Canary Islands, made two Ciliegine episodes and staged a performance in San Berillo.
MILO — Yes. And it’s only 28 October.
BRUNO — Do Valerio, Robertavenera and Giuliana know November is coming?
MILO — All too well.
BRUNO — And Serena and Peppe?
MILO — That is probably one of the first things you learn on a placement here.
BRUNO — And the shieldbugs?
MILO — I think they’re still deciding whether to extend their stay.
BRUNO — Then please make it clear that I’m not accepting any new bookings.
The calendar is still filling up: COMIZI and the activities with Clara Delorme, INNESTI residencies in Petralia, and preparations for events in November and December. But this part of the story stops here, at the end of October, when completed projects and projects still to come are all sharing the office desks at once.
Behind the numbers, photographs and videos are people who meet, get to know one another, meet again and learn from one another. And a large brown teddy bear who, of all the possible visitors, seems to attract shieldbugs most of all.
🧸 BRUNO — Milo, next month can I at least ask for a holiday?
MILO — You can ask.
BRUNO — And will they give me one?
MILO — I’m not making any predictions about that. I’ve already lost TOTOcorti.