The spectacle of dawn in the Valley of the Temples
The "dawns at the Valley of the Temples" are a successful format that has been repeated every summer since 2017 in the heart of the archaeological park of Agrigento. An expansion of the park's offer that enriches the visitor experience, expands the categories of public involved in the use of the cultural and landscape heritage and involves local stakeholders through collaborations and integrated proposals.
The format combines two elements: the dynamism of the user experience and the exceptional nature of the proposed visiting hours. While the guided tours, conducted by expert archaeologists, are enriched thanks to the interaction with dance, music and theater in events ranging from ancient to contemporary; use outside the usual visiting hours (each appointment with dawn starts between 4.30 / 5.00 am) allows you to take part in an unprecedented experience.
Thanks to these two characteristics, the relationship of visitors with the heritage changes: the visit experience becomes more engaging, multisensory and, at the same time, intimate.
The proposed events, created in collaboration with local stakeholders, enhance the vitality of the places involved and the relevance of the links between past and present: archeology in the Valley of the Temples becomes a living testimony and performance; antiquity and contemporaneity interact and confront each other.
2020 edition: the dawns don't stop
Even in 2020 the Albe did not stop. The Valley of the Temples was in fact among the very first Italian archaeological sites to resume its activity, putting in place every security measure to reopen in complete safety for all and obtaining the Covid Free certification.
This is how, in the course of six appointments, two different experiences have alternated:
"The awakening of humanity" associated the path led by archaeologists with the "theatrical pictures" edited by Gaetano Aronica and Giovanni Volpe in a show dedicated to music and dance. A tribe of free men and women descended from the Temple to welcome guests at sunrise, through the voices of the "heretical" writers of the 1900s, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Leonardo Sciascia, Marguerite Yourcenar, Albert Camus, but also Vitaliano Brancati, to tell a desperately current story.
Homer's "Iliad" through the fragments of Sebastiano Lo Monaco, under the Temple of Concordia: the whole Homeric poem was re-proposed in just over an hour through fragments but without losing any painting, any scene, any character, but offering an overall view attentive to the characters. The brave Hector and the wise Priam, the tenacious Andromache and the beautiful Helen, and Paris have relived in the Valley.
At the end of the show, a special breakfast was offered to all those present who were able to taste some of the Diodoros brand products produced within the Archaeological and Landscape Park of the Valley of the Temples such as honey, almonds, oil.