29 Sept-9 Dec 2006. Romes most daring and definitely most interesting arts festival has grown into a world class event with cutting edge artists and provoking performances that stretch into the winter months. The festivals rule of thumb is the use of every possible artistic language, with the 39 performances on the programme and over 200 artists giving life to a wide-ranging spectrum of interdisciplinary events and multi-mediality. This years edition its 21st has been divided into five different areas: art & technology, new views on old stories, Easts, transformations, and nightline. Some of the cult figures participating are Robert Lepage, Emma Dante, Alain Platel, Fiona Shaw, Silvie Guillelm and Akram Khan. One of the events that immediately stands out the one-man-show written and performed by the Canadian Robert Lepage in which he pays an unusual tribute to Hans Christian Andersen on the bicentenary of his birth. Together with the fairies and happy endings we all know, in Lepages reading of the Danish writers work sexual demons and the emotional voids of his life rear their ugly heads permeating the scene with perversion and pain. A special treat for the Anglophone audiences is a performance by Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw who make an incursion into the poetry of Yeats, Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. As usual, RomaEuropa Festival has a special regard for dance, with the Belgian choreographer Alain Platels new work entitled Vsprs, inspired by Monteverdis Vespers and performed by the amazing Ballets C. de la B. Then, one of the most shining stars of western ballet, Sylvie Guillem meets up with Akram Khan in the section dedicated to Easts. Two culturally and historically distinct generations, Gao Yanjinzi and Luo Lili, mother and daughter, dance together exalting the ties of blood. In the section entitled Nightline, seven famous choreographers, including Wim Wandekeybus, Caterina Sagna and Colin Poole, tackle the themes of transgression and prejudice. The festival also examines the transformation of music and sound with a new composition by Terry Riley and a host of contemporary music and video events. RomaEuropa Festival closes its rich programme with an event entitled Cocoon Night, a mega-rave at the Fiera di Roma with DJs Riccardo Villalobos and James Holden.