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HISTORY
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Ele D'Artagnan
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Like all good stories, the history of the ICBIE association and the D'Artagnan International Project School of Art, Music and Languages is a controversial and complex one, with a mixture of life, art, philosophy and dreams. By lucky happenstance, the founder of the Institute, in a critical moment of his career in journalism and education that forced him t
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Honorary President
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Roy Zimmerman
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o abandon his teaching position--which was forever precarious--decided to visit New York for the following reason: having inherited the paintings of Ele D'Artagnan (whose real name was Michele Lombardi, an actor/painter friend of Fellini) when he died, the founder thought of searching for an art gallery that could put on an exhibition and sell D'Artagnan's works: what place would be better --seeing as in Italy, any exhibition was impossible, due to the angry last wishes of the defunct painter--than New York Like in a fairy tale, the gallery was found, the exhibition was such a success that The New York Times and the New Yorker Magazine printed rave reviews, and enough paintings were sold to form a solid initial capital, so the founder decided to realize a common dream shared by him and D'Artagnan. He bought the property in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil.
And so, together with the founder Pietro Gallina and his wife Marlene Rosa de Souza and Roy Zimmerman, a group of professors and artists (European, American and Brazilian) came together and perfected their ideas, growing out of their shared passion for the arts and for teaching, resulting in the creation of a cultural center and a multi-disciplinary community school (visual arts, music, theater, languages, crafts and tourism), using the lovely building that had just been purchased in Brazil.
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Marlene de Souza
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The choice of the particular site was not a casual one, because the Institute, the library, the theater and the school are situated outside of the city's center, in the Ribeira quarter, a historic and beautiful bairro that has been unjustly forgotten and is without modern development, a place where educational opportunities are scarce and are limited exclusively to those who have sufficient money. The choice (or the challenge) was to work on the margins of the city, away from the elegant city center that displays its opulence and tries to hide its poverty, its castaways and its crime.
The Institute was planned as not only a seat of formal instruction, but as a place of intercultural exchange, to become point of reference in the community (primarily for young people). The exchange is to be understood as a cultural dialog between Europe, North America and South America. As a meeting place for people coming from divergent social backgrounds, all of whom work for the community of the ICBIE EUROPA, giving their talents and contributing to cultural development, the Institute aims to form professional skills, providing hope and work prospects that can help its students attain a respectable place in modern society.
At the moment, the school's activities include formal courses in beginning, intermediate and advanced Italian, beginning and intermediate English, computer science, choral singing and hapkido. The school also hosts a regular cineforum (open to the local community), poetry readings, artist workshops, encounters, conferences and other cultural activities.
The ICBIE also provides low cost accommodations for Brazilian and foreign students and international volunteers, in the spirit of a tourism that is socially responsible. These guests may use our facilities as a base for their travel in Brazil and South America.
The ICBIE works in partnership with Rhythm of Hope of Brazil, and is planning to open a Center for Afro-Brazilian Studies during 2008.
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