Entroterra is a full length dance performance that reveals the map of the soul of a woman in four distinct stages of her life. It will be performed by Anabella Lenzu / Dance Drama on September, 21 at the San Cono Associazione as part of the second edition of the Ciao Italy Performing Arts Festival. Todd Carroll

Anabella’s Dream

A local Italian-Argentinean artist seeks to bridge the gap between Williamsburg’s “hipster” population and the historical Italian community through a two-day Performing Arts Festival.

Everything in Anabella Lenzu’s warm Spanish accent flaunt with Italian sonorities tells us about her personal history. This Argentinean-born, Brooklyn-based choreographer and dancer of Italian descent, who lived in Chile, Argentina and Italy before settling in Williamsburg, is something of a cultural boundary-breaker. Her latest venture, the “Ciao Italy Performing Arts Festival,” whose second edition will take place on September, 20 and 21 at the San Cono Society on Ainslie Street, is aimed at creating “a bridge between the historical Italian community in Williamsburg and the more recent population of artists” that has flocked to the neighborhood over the past decade. “When I first arrived in the neighborhood [in 2005], I noticed that there was no communication between the two groups,” she recalled. “Last month, there was a block party in the neighborhood and none of the ‘new-generation’ people showed up.”

Lenzu started teaching dance at the age of 15 in Argentina, moved to Chile and in 1998 created her own dance company, Anabella Lenzu /DanceDrama, whose mission is to introduce unfamiliar individuals to contemporary dance and develop a cultural, educational and artistic exchange between New York and the communities in Chile, Argentina and Italy, where she lived from 2003 to 2005 after a short detour in the United States.

Lenzu, 32, moved to Williamsburg in 2005 with her husband, American photographer Todd Carroll. “I was decided to live in an Italian neighborhood. I love Italy and I fell so close to the culture. Living in Argentina was like living in Italy, the architecture, the foods, the streets… Everything is like Italy,” she said.

When she arrived here, she was struck by the lack of communication between the new population of artists and the entrenched Italian community, which settled in Williamsburg and Greenpoint as early as the 1860s, but is now being priced out of the neighborhood. “There was no communication, no integration,” she regretted. “I see the both sides […] Among the new people, a lot are not international or are too busy to integrate in the neighborhood. And among the older Italians who have a strong sense of home, a lot feel invaded. It is hard to find people that can be links between both worlds,” she added.

As an Italian-Argentinean artist living in Williamsburg, Lenzu felt that she was that missing link.

In 2007, she launched, with the help of her husband, the first edition of the “Ciao Italy Performing Arts Festival” in a small dance studio on Conselyea Street. But the lack of funding and visibility hindered the Festival’s path to success.

For the 2008 edition, which will feature several dance performances, a play, a photography slide and a lecture by Italian and Italian-inspired scholars and artists, Lenzu managed to secure a $1,500 grant from the Brooklyn Council of Arts, “recognition,” as Lenzu calls it. “The big challenge was to get integrated in the community,” she explained, sipping an ice coffee at Fortunato’s Bakery. “I’m very happy that the Festival will take place at the San Cono Society,” one of the only remaining Italian mutual aid organizations still active in the neighborhood. According to her, it is an acknowledgement of her work by the local Italian immigrants and probably a turning point in her quest to preserve Italian traditions in the face of roaring demographic change in the neighborhood. “Older Italians ask me questions. But once they see what it is, they will love it.”

Lenzu has high hopes for Festival’s future. She has recently spoken to Festival organizers in Salerno, Italy, and Washington, D.C interested in establishing a partnership with “Ciao Italy.” “That means that the support will be bigger and that we will have more artists,” she said enthusiastically. “The Festival will get bigger and bigger.”