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Little Italy
By Megan Sheesley
msheesle@mscd.edu

Photo by Jenn LeBlanc • jkerriga@mscd.edu Lead flag thrower Andrea Camiciottoli of Gli Sbandieratori performs solo for the crowd at Belmar. Gli Sbandieratori is a group of traditional flag throwers from Florence, Italy. They performed all weekend at the Festival Italiano.

A piazza filled with music, vino and the smell of cannolis signaled the 3rd Annual Festival Italiano, which included a weekend of culture, fun and good food at Belmar’s open-air market and the Starz FilmCenter.

The celebration brought a taste of the old world to the city as vendors, performers and artists converged on Belmar, Lakewood’s year-old downtown district.

“It was a community event, and you didn’t have to be Italian,” said Steve Burkholder, mayor of Lakewood. Burkholder saw the event not only as a tribute to Italian life and arts, but also as a tribute to the community’s diverse roots.

“As we become more inclusive, (it is important to) celebrate more cultures,” Burkholder said. “Our society has become so insulated, we forget what it’s like to act and react to the community. That’s what the Festival Italiano is all about.”

The festivities kicked off Sept. 20 at the Starz FilmCenter with a screening of Fredirico Fellini’s 1954 classic, La Strada (The Road). The film emphasizes the struggle between heart and mind as Zampano (Anthony Quinn) travels about Italy in a carnival sideshow with Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) as his assistant.

The events continued Sept. 23 with performances by Gli Sbandieratori, a group of flag throwers from Florence, Italy, who paraded down the street and captivated the audience at the piazza, dancing and spinning flags to the sound of trumpets and drums. Flag throwing is a tradition in Italy dating from the medieval period.

Attendees saw another Italian tradition every two hours at the Balistreri Vineyards’ Children’s Grape Stomp. Parents laughed and took pictures as the children took off their shoes and sunk their toes into the mushy grapes. The squashed grapes will eventually be turned into “Little Feet Merlot” and sold for $24 a bottle, with part of the proceeds to be donated to The Children’s Hospital. The kids stomped 4,000 pounds of merlot grapes during the festival, enough for about 1,500 bottles of wine.

Meanwhile, adults enjoyed wine-tasting seminars in the wine garden giving the participants the opportunity to sample four different Italian wines, with seminar themes ranging from “Interesting Reds of Italy” to the subtleties of pinot grigio.

The dozens of culinary vendors provided perfect complements to the wines, dishing out simple pastas, spicy Italian sausages, gourmet pizza and more. Chefs also demonstrated how to cook dishes from all over Italy.

Competitive festival attendees participated in a two-day tournament of bocce ball, a game dating from the days of Julius Caesar, in which teams of one, two or four people roll different-sized balls down a 76-foot-long court and try to get them as close to each other as possible without touching. When the tournament wasn’t in progress, the bocce courts were open to the public.

The Old World ambiance was completed by classic Italian music played by the Jefferson Symphony Orchestra.

With delectable cuisine and colorful performances, the Festival Italiano transported the crowds to the streets of Florence and Rome. It was, as they say in the old country, bellissimo!