The 41st edition of the Romaeuropa Festival opens under the sign of emerging Italian authorial voices. Sofia Nappi, a choreographer who has gained international recognition and whose work has been presented by major European companies and theatres, presents the national premiere of her new production CHORA – The Void at the Origin with her company KOMOCO.
The work invites us to return to the origin of movement and existence, exploring what precedes language and form. Listening, breath, gravity, and space become companions of memory, tension, and potentiality; fragile gestures transform into volumes, pauses, and collective flows, revealing how emptiness is not absence, but possibility and creation.
The evening opens with DODI, the first choreography signed by Sofia Nappi, a short duet that explores the turmoil and hidden poetry within the relationship with the Other.
The New European Ensemble (NEuE) tells stories through the communicative power of contemporary music—stories that aim to reflect, challenge, inspire, and deepen our understanding of human experience and the environment around us.
The group often combines music with film, literature, theatre, dance, and visual arts. The ensemble has collaborated with Edward Snowden, Boris van der Ham, Nick Verstand, DeFrame, Opera2Day, Het Nationale Theater (National Theatre of the Netherlands), Amnesty International, the International Criminal Court, and War Child. NEuE was founded in 2009 in the Netherlands by passionate and dedicated musicians from across Europe.
The ensemble has built a reputation for creative programming as well as for “fantastic” (NRC) and “excellent performances” (de Volkskrant), and has been described as one of the “leading ensembles in the Netherlands” (Nieuwe Noten). In 2019, NEuE received the prestigious Kersjes Prize, which recognizes “10 years of activity at the highest level in presenting contemporary music to a broad audience in an engaging and accessible way.”
Composers such as Mark Anthony Turnage, José María Sánchez-Verdú, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Guo Wenjing, Carlo Boccadoro, Martijn Padding, and Klas Torstensson have written works for the ensemble.
The group has performed in nearly all major concert halls and theatres in the Netherlands, including the Concertgebouw, Theater Carré, and Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ in Amsterdam, De Doelen in Rotterdam, TivoliVredenburg, and the Royal Theatre in The Hague. The ensemble regularly appears at festivals such as Gaudeamus Music Week, Festival Vlaanderen, November Music, Shanghai New Music Week, Beijing Contemporary Music Festival, and Svensk Musikvår. International tours have taken the group to the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Lebanon, China, and Hong Kong.
The ensemble’s musicians also regularly work with young composers and performers at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague and at music schools around the world.
