“Two things can be done with a flag: waving it up high or hold it tight to heart”

The main activity of the historic Group is the performance of the flag-wavers and musicians; over more than 35 years of history, lot of shows have put in evidence the ability of the athletes and, at the same time, let Volterra be successfully known and higly appreciated in Italy and worldwide, showing off and promoting the tradition of this ancient art. Everytime the flag-wavers perform in front of the audience, we can admire the flag games carried on to the rhythm of clarions and drums, in a fantastic mix of harmony and spectacle. The shows have different lengths depending on demands and can take place even indoor (theatres, sports halls, ballroom, TV studios..); where there’s enough space, the flag-wavers can perform giving life to fascinating choreographies; their shows are made of several phases, starting from the traditional flag-waving of the “singolista” (one person only), where technical ability and accuracy stand out (the “singolista” can hold from 1 up to 5 and more flags simultaneously); the performance becomes much more difficult with the “Coppia” (two persons) where harmony and synchrony play a key role in both the flag-wavers; then we have “la piccola squadra” (the little team) composed by 6 persons; here the continuos crossed throws of the flags and the fast flags swap among the flag-wavers are the main and more clapped attractive; the best of the show comes with the “Grande squadra” (big team) composed by 8-16 persons, where also the musicians take part in the choreography, with continuous movements from the beginning to the end, in a crescendo of intensity and emotions. Over the last few years, the Group has had interesting and stimulating experiences, such as in 2016, when they performed at the “Teatro del silenzio” for Andrea Bocelli’s show-concert “Le Cirque”; the flag-wavers, well directed by Luca Tommassini, in 48 hours performed a choreography that combined the main theme of the spectacle and the lyrics of the tenor; the flag-wavers of Volterra, together with the dancers and the extras, opened the show coming down from the hill behind the crowded stands, evoking the movie “La Strada” by Fellini, and placed themselves under the stage while Bocelli was coming on the scene with a carriage singing with his son Matteo; then, on the Aida melody, they got on the stage floor again with the dancers while the tenor was singing with famous stars such as Leo Nucci, Sumi Jo, Giovanni Allevi, Svetla Vassileva; at the end they performed one more time over the encore given by Bocelli. This was not the first time the flag-wavers performed for a concert of the tenor from Lajatico; in September 2014 they were called by the Andrea Bocelli Foundation to participate to the first Italian edition of the Celebrity Fight Night, the charity event founded by Mohammed Ali to substain the research on Parkinson disease; on that occasion they set off for the aperitivo and dinner at Castello Frescobaldi in Florence; in 2016 the Celebrity Fight Night took place at Piazza dei Priori in Volterra, where the flag-wavers performed at their best in front of many celebrities.