Dance performance held inside Italian cathedral

November 11, 2026

A dance performance (video) took place inside Bologna Cathedral on November 9 in commemoration of the eighth centenary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi.

Dancers who portrayed the moon, the wind, water, fire, and death performed works by Maurice Béjart, Carolyn Carson, Asaf Messerer, Igor Stravinsky, and Michel Fokine.

“Of all the ways in which humanity has looked upon the creatures of the world, Saint Francis’s gaze has offered us, for eight centuries, a unique vision: one that goes beyond admiration and is animated by a sense of participation and kinship with all Creation,” said Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi of Bologna, the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference. “We long for that vision of the creatures, a vision that has faded in our generation, flattened by a preoccupation with utility and profit.”

 

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Further information:

• Se la gratuità risulta sovversiva (L'Osservatore Romano, 11/10/26)
• MEMORARE ’26 | A Meditation in San Petronio (Bologna Festival)