Stone Oven House

Thank you to everyone who joined us in Rorà for the screening of the first film in the ‘Che Cine a Rorà’ film series. The film was *Ma Tèrra* by Andrea Fantino, shot in the Stura Valley, not too far from us, which explores the Occitan language and its speakers – and we enjoyed it. Thank you to the Unione Montana Valle Stura for sharing the film, and thank you to the director for his work. We hope to meet him in person on another occasion.

For this film series, we have tried to choose films that tell stories which also resonate with
Rorà, but which haven’t necessarily been produced geographically close to us.

Unione Montana Valle Stura
Andrea Fantino

Follow us to find out about the upcoming films.

stura

This Saturday, July 4, we invite you to Stone Oven House for an evening of music.

At exactly 6:00 PM, pianist Ksenia Fedorova and drummer Araik Vietinghoff will begin their performance. The concert will start on time, and this time we won’t be able to wait for late arrivals—we’re planning to continue the evening at another cultural event in Rorà. Please arrive a little early. You’re welcome to come before 6:00 PM to visit Nicola Bertasi’s exhibition, which is still on view at Stone Oven House.

Working with piano and drums, Ksenia and Araik create music built on careful listening, silence, and subtle sonic gestures. Inspired by the textures of water, birds, wind, and distant storms, their performances move freely between fragile ambient soundscapes and rhythmic, almost hypnotic passages. Every concert develops differently, responding to the space, the acoustics, and the audience.

After the performance, everyone is welcome to stay and continue the evening around our communal table.

Dinner is available for members of the Stone Oven House Association. If you’re not yet a member, you can easily join on the spot by obtaining a membership card. Feel free to bring something small to share with everyone at the table. If you’d like, you can also leave a donation to support the association and its cultural activities, whether or not you stay for dinner.

Then, at 9:15 PM, the evening continues just a few minutes away at the Waldensian Church of Rorà with Les Vaudois: histoire et chants d’un peuple-église — a theatrical and musical tribute to the historian and pastor Giorgio Tourn, combining storytelling with traditional Waldensian songs. It is a rare opportunity to experience two very different cultural events in one evening, both within walking distance.

Saturday, July 4

6:00 PM — Stone Oven House
Via Maestra 4, Rorà

Free entrance. Donations to support the association are always appreciated.

Yesterday we opened The Rorà Notebook by Nicola Bertasi.

It is a small exhibition about a small mountain village. And yet, within it, centuries seem to coexist.

The stories of the Waldensians persecuted for their faith. The sketches of partisans. A Jewish artist hidden from Nazi-Fascist violence in a stone house. Grenades still scattered across the alpine pastures after military exercises. Russian artists fleeing repression. Ukrainian refugees escaping war.

At first glance, these stories have nothing in common. They belong to different times and different people.

But perhaps they are connected by something profoundly human.

As Nicola writes, destruction is often orderly and mechanical. Resistance to death, instead, is human.

Over two residencies at Casa col Forno in 2021 and 2022, Nicola listened to local voices, explored family archives and the archives of the Waldensian Church, collecting fragments rather than certainties. The Rorà Notebook is not a history lesson. It is an invitation to pay attention to the traces people leave behind: memories, gestures of courage, acts of kindness, and the stubborn insistence on remaining human.

Thank you to Nicola Bertasi, to everyone who shared their stories and archives, and to all who joined us for the opening yesterday.