Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, the Original Cultures flight, with a destination of Bologna, and picking up passengers in Tokyo and London is now ready to depart! Fasten your seat-belts and prepare for lift off.

Original Cultures is a non-profit project that aims to create, facilitate and promote cultural exchange between European countries and Japan through the medium of modern performing arts in new and unique ways.

The idea for the project came to Laurent Fintoni shortly before leaving Japan in June 2008, following many discussions with Hiroki Sakaida (owner of the POP GROUP label) and Japanese artist Goth Trad. Upon his return to Europe in September that year he put the wheels in motion to turn the idea into reality and create a non-profit project that would allow cultural exchange between Japan, Italy and the UK at the level of modern performing arts, starting with music and visual arts. With the help of Cristian Adamo, Yassin Hannat and Alessandro Micheli, both based in Bologna, the Original Cultures project was ‘born’ in November 2008.

The first edition of the Original Cultures exchange programme launches in June 2009 in Bologna, Italy and brings together artists Ericailcane, Dem, Will Barras, Tayone, 2Tall/Om Unit and Tatsuki. Over 4 days, they’ll be invading art spaces and clubs to create and showcase one-off performances, live painting and unique collaborations. All the show will be recorded and the results will be broadcast across various sites including www.samurai.fm and shook.fm before being showcased at an event in London later this year.

Here’s the full line-up :

• 3-5 June, all day – artist workshops

• 4 June, 18:00 – seminar for music students with pilot artists at Sì (Via S. Vitale 67)

• 5 June, 19:00 – seminar and q&a session with all artists at libreria Modo Infoshop (Via Mascarella 24/b)

• 6 June, 18:00 till late – ‘aperitivo’ with the visual artists featuring live painting and open discussions + DJ sets from Original Cultures collective at Sì, (Via S. Vitale 67) followed by a live showcase featuring music and live art, directed by the artists

Check the trailers:

For more info, visit http://www.originalcultures.org