Special project: Theater in the hands

THEATER IN THE HANDS
Puppets,
an ancient grammar mirroring the times.

Project edited
by Stefano Giunchi and Alfonso Cipolla

Sept. 22 and 23, 9:30 a.m. - Gambettola, Fellini Hall

Theater in the Hands is the highlight project of this XLI edition of the International Festival Arriving from the Sea!: it brings to fruition a decade-long research journey on the constituent and structural elements of puppetry language.

A universal language
The dramaturgy of puppetry derives from a natural predisposition of human hands (the opposable thumb), from a consequent universal and immediate language, from basic grammars of movements, conjugated with the different cultures of the countries that have developed this very special form of theater.

A theater that is always contemporary
The puppeteer's eye, historically, looks to the theater of its time: from Commedia dell'Arte, to prose, opera, popular storytelling, crime news, today to film, "network" and television.

What are called "traditional puppets" (that is, made in the ancient fashion), can be very modern and in step with contemporary audiences.
An art, with such a simple basic structure and combina- tory, continually reinvents new characters in which spectators identi- cate themselves, with the complicity and power of languages and dialects.

Characters that are continually born and reborn
This production of continuous characters had a golden moment at the threshold of the nineteenth century with Gerolamo, Gianduja, Guignol, Fagiolino, Gioppino, Vasilache and many others, to continue in the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, with Sganapino, Tilella Català, Laszlo Vitez, Bargnocla...
From the 1970s to the present, the production of characters and stories has resumed, in Italy, with brand new protagonists, Pirù, Pin Girometta, Areste Paganos, Spazzolino, Tavà, the reinvention of Stenterello from Pupi di Stac, etc.

A special project made up of performances, talks and an exhibition.
The "Theater in the Hands" Project aims to highlight this vitality of puppets and their power of continuous regeneration. It consists of three closely connected moments:

  • an Exhibition, Neo-born by Hands, where puppet theater characters generated in shacks from the early 19th century to the present are displayed for the first time.
  • a Review of performances, with a strong hold on the audience, chosen from the best examples (in different eras) of the communicative power of puppets witnessing their "contemporaneity."
  • an International Colloquium, open to the public, where demonstrations by artists and communications by scholars alternate.

 

 

Follow the green

The public can easily follow the performances or demonstrations and speeches at the International Colloquium or visit the exhibition by searching the printed Program for the color GREEN.

Dialogue with the inert. The poetics of materials

with Marzia Gambardella | MalaStranaCompagnie (France)

Saturday, May 28 and Sunday, May 29, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Gambettola

The Seminar proposes to explore the dramaturgical possibilities that arise from the relationship between actor-manipulator and material. The dialogue with the inanimate is a continuous play of mirrors and cross-references: the stimulation of the manipulator corresponds to a response from the material that becomes a question for the manipulator and so on in a "mise en abîme" in which the boundaries between manipulator and manipulated are lost, or rather, merged in a continuous dialogue. 

Compasses of this exploration will be the tools of the Philippe Genty Company. We will encounter the material by putting ourselves at the service of its dynamics, listening to its essence, discovering its poetic qualities and metaphorical possibilities. We will let the evocative dynamics of the material guide the encounter with our intimate resources, our memory, our memories, our inner landscapes. We will discover the material as a partner, an extension, an echo of our unconscious. We will let ourselves be guided in this dialogue taking care to articulate our relationship with the material between dissociation and contamination to discover different possibilities of scenic writing.

 

Marzia Gambardella

A graduate in Philosophy, she trained and worked as an actress between Rome and Milan. She fell in love with puppets, learned to build them, animate them and in 2009 moved to France to work with Philippe Genty; she is performer and puppeteer in Voyageurs Immobiles and in the object theater show La llamada del mar. She collaborates with other companies as actress, puppeteer and director. In 2016 she founded MalaStranaCompagnie in Paris. What she is interested in is a visual theater not mediated by words - or rather by the mind. A theater in which gestures, sounds, images, materials, puppets give body to our feelings, our contradictions, what dwells inside us.What she is interested in is the human being in front of himself. In this sense, the puppet in her work becomes a double, declination and echo of the actor-puppeteer ... or vice versa. In 2010 she began teaching and over the years the pedagogical work has become increasingly passionate to her. Currently in Italy she is the only person authorized by Philippe Genty to teach her method.

 

The performer, the object and the secret in between

with Yael Rasooly (Israel)

Monday, May 23, 9:00 am-1:00 pm and 2:00 pm-6:00 pm
Ravenna
English language workshop

In this short and intense workshop, Yael Rasooly invites participants on a creative journey into the universe of object theater. Participants will explore the dialogue and relationships between the performer/character and "ready-made" objects. They will look for objects that are "loaded" with meaning, either from the use of the object or its symbolic associations, or objects that contain an emotional load related to memory and personal history. Group exercises and improvisations will take place, also touching on the theme of individual creation as a starting point for future development. The body will be used in relation to objects and their manipulation, as well as the voice, both in speaking and singing. Above all, the workshop aims to immerse participants in the process of creation itself, providing tools for individual and group work. To enter the inner space of invention and playfulness, going through the artistic traffic jam, improvising, working quickly, with heightened sensitivity and with pleasure.

Yael Rasooly

critically acclaimed director, actress, singer and puppeteer. Born in Jerusalem in 1983, she trained as a classical pianist and singer and went on to study stage design at Central Saint Martin's in London. Her personal theatrical language is based on a multidisciplinary approach that combines object theater, figure theater, visual art and music. In addition to her theater career, Yael performs as a singer with numerous ensembles/orchestras in Europe and North America. Her performances have been presented in more than 30 countries and hundreds of theaters worldwide, winning numerous international awards. Over the years she has taught at various institutions such as Trinity College, the University of Connecticut and the Eugene O'neill Theatre Centre.

Animation and manipulation workshop AnimaTO

with Tonino Murru | Is Mascareddas

Friday, May 20, Saturday, May 21 and Sunday, May 22, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Ravenna

Animation Theater is an art form in which an inanimate object comes to life through the technical expertise, sensitivity and human intuition of the puppeteer. Giving life to what life does not have also imposes an important inquiry into the characteristics of this "new existence." AnimaTO is an analysis of the different expressive possibilities of animation theater, a workshop aimed at adults to discover puppetry as a dramatic tool. It is a cognitive journey on the manipulation and dramaturgy of the puppet and other objects to be animated.

Topics covered:

  • Introduction to Figure Theater
  • The Buattini Theater: brief history and main animation techniques
  • The discovery of the dramatic instrument: exercises in puppet manipulation, gestures and anatomical action
  • Character creation through shack stage experimentation and identity and historical character analysis

Is Mascareddas

Founded by Antonio Murru and Donatella Pau in 1980, the Is Mascareddas Company is a cultural reality that has contributed greatly to the dissemination and awareness of Figure Theater in Sardinia, a theatrical tradition that until then was almost unknown on the island. The basic idea that sustains the company's activity is that theater animated by puppets is theater in its own right, with equal dignity to theater with actors. Alongside its production activity, the company plays an important role in Sardinia in the dissemination of Animation Theater - as well as children's theater - by conceiving and staging projects, festivals, and reviews that host Italian and international companies.

ORIPHOEA

A thousand origami on display
by
Lorenzo Gianmario Galli

In Japan it is said that the gods grant a wish to anyone who makes 1,000 origami cranes. Of this tradition, called senbazuru, I love the intimate ritual, the discipline it implies and the meditative repetitiveness it generates. While making my 1000 origami, perhaps because of the particular historical period we are living in, more than the crane I could not help but think of another animal, also linked to myth: the phoenix. Birth from one's own ashes, but also death in one's own nest and return in a new form... these are just some of the symbolic elements that thefirebird carries. So after shaping 1,000 origami birds, I realized that they could be little phoenixes. Why not? No one has ever seen a phoenix! That's why I called them "orifea" (from "phoenix origami"). 

The orphae became the starting point for a video project, divided into two parts: Oriphoea zero is a short film with flesh-and-blood actors and stop-motion animated figures; for I cacciatori di orifee, on the other hand, the idea is that of a "poetic documentary" to narrate, as a series of images without a real narrative thread, intimate creative gestures that I witnessed during this 2020/21. The intent is to want to find seeds of beauty amidst the welter of sensations that characterized such a unique and unprecedented condition as mandatory confinement . The orifee are no longer animated, but they are ever present both as physical objects and, more importantly, as metaphor. 

ANIMATAZINE

Experimental publishing project
by
Alessandra Amicarelli and Valeria Sacco

ANIMATAZINE is the first Italian, print and digital, trilingual (FR IT EN) fanzine dedicated to animated theater. An experimental and innovative publishing project, completely independent, it hosts artists, thinkers, creators and researchers from all over the world. During the festival, in conjunction with the launch of issue 0 of ANIMATAZINE and the opening of a crowdfunding campaign, the project will be presented to the press and the public. 

Website
Friday, October 8, 12:00 p.m.
Gambettola - Fellini Hall

Project presentation press conference. In-person and online on Zoom platform. To report your attendance or request the Zoom link write to prenotazione@teatrodeldrago.it

Saturday, October 9, 6:30 p.m.
Gambettola - Former Slaughterhouse

Presentation of ANIMATAZINE, an experimental publishing project. Reservations required at 392 6664211 or by e-mail at prenotazione@teatrodeldrago.it

Oct. 7 to 9

Workshop on the theme ofwater dedicated to students in the figure theater courses Animateria and The Puppeteer's Crafts

Valentina Lisi

RELATIONSHIPS NEEDED

Friday, October 8, 6:00 p.m.
Municipal Theater of Gambettola

by and with Valentina Lisi
directed Nadia Milani
in collaboration with Festival Incanti, Teatro del Drago
show finalist Progetto Cantiere 2020*
Ages 12 and up

Reduced ticket €5, full ticket €10
Reservation required

What is an addiction? "Necessary Relationships" begins this way, with an uncomfortable but, indeed, necessary question. On stage, a large and dusty Family Album, repurposed as a Pop Up book version, with its photographs coming to life and animating through the use of paper silhouettes and figures. And then? Then there is Matilde, a young girl who tells us about the vicissitudes of her bizarre family of origin and her growing up amidst vicissitudes and dynamics that cyclically repeat themselves, amid vices, foibles, habits and impositions dictated by a patriarchal society that feeds on clichés, conventions and stereotypes.

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Theater of Feet

TIPTOEING KITCHEN

Sunday, October 10, 9:00 p.m.
Municipal Theater of Gambettola

Laura Kibel and Veronica Gonzalez concept.
performer Veronica Gonzalez
direction Laura Kibel
scenes Rocio Matosas
realization puppets, costumes, objects Laura Kibel, Rocio Matosas
music elaboration Gaetano Ferrara
voice Artusi Mauro Magliozzi
photos M. Marchetti / E.Biguzzi
video realization GeoMultimedia
Figure theater for one actress and two feet. From 14 years old

Reduced ticket €5, full ticket €10
Reservation required

The extraordinary figure of Pellegrino Artusi told through the enchanted eyes of his faithful helper Marietta. Cooking is the backdrop to the relationship between the Master, gruff but good-natured, and the Pupil, bungling, dreamy but always devoted. With transforming skills, Veronica Gonzalez brings hilarious episodes to life using the "Theater of Feet" technique. Characters in the show arise from the actress' feet and legs, creating amazing inventions, gags and choreography accompanied by those giants (Rossini, Ponchielli, Verdi, Puccini, Collodi) who, like Artusi himself, made Italy of ITALIANS. This tribute to Pellegrino Artusi is not meant to be a biography nor a cooking treatise, precisely because of the expressive choice not to use words. Thanks to figure theater, the stimuli will be more visual and imaginative with a view to reaching an international audience. Artusi's book has been translated into many languages, emotions instead will travel "on tiptoe."

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Duo La Fortuna

NOT JUST PUPPETS

Sunday, October 10, 6:00 p.m.
Pertini Square - Gambettola

by and with Gianluca Palma and Fabio Zanagelli
Street theater with puppets and actors
For all

Free admission
Reservation required

Fabio Zaganelli, in collaboration with Gianluca Palma are Duo La Fortuna, in a new show that draws from the repertoire of figure theater, clowning and juggling to create an original and engaging comedy duo. Otto the puppet, director of the Great Puppet Circus, is looking for a new performer for his show. Unfortunately, only one candidate shows up at the audition: Fabius! In a welter of mischief and bickering, amidst improbable musical rehearsals and controversial circus skills, it will be up to the audience's applause to decide whether the audition has passed...

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Plant Drama

FOUR TIMES ANDERSEN

Friday, October 8, 9:30 a.m. and 10:45 a.m.
Longiano - San Girolamo Hall

Compagnia Drammatico Vegetale/Ravenna Teatro
by Pietro Fenati
with Pietro Fenati, Elvira Mascanzoni
direction Pietro Fenati
set design and figures Pietro Fenati, Elvira Mascanzoni
lighting and sound Alessandro Bonoli
technical reference Alessandro Bonoli
organization William Rossano, Sara Maioli

Andersen's was a life spent writing and telling stories, cutting out strange and amusing figurines in paper to animate his personal, dreamlike theater of life. A shrunken pea, an old toy soldier, a cardboard box turned into a figure theater, a scissors and little else, set about telling stories. Souvenir-objects, enough to fuel the tale of Olechiudigliocchi, of The Princess on the Pea, of the two snails in The Happy Family and of Tenacious Tin Soldier. A simple little theater becomes, by the magic of theater, the microcosm of our fears and joys.

Performance reserved for schools

Salvatore Gatto PULCINELLA: 500 YEARS WELL WORN

Sunday, 23 at 8:00 pm
Almagià Artificerie

by and with Salvatore Gatto

This show is an ancient plot that has been traveling since at least the 1500s. Pulcinella is the protagonist and, together with the characters who follow the limelight, tells stories of everyday life. In fact, one of the "constant" situations in the world of guarattelle is the struggle between Pulcinella and Pasquale Finizio known as "terremoto" (the guappo) or cacciuttolo (the dog) or even Capa 'e provolone (death) and so on. In the end, good always triumphs over iniquity, truth over injustice, life over death. Here is the exceptionalism of Punchinello. Music intersects with the harmonies and rhythms of this show, embroidering a tapestry of joyful and captivating sounds. If Punchinello, seen in a symbolic key, represents man, the antagonists then are his needs and fears. It is precisely when he defeats them that those same fears and negative instincts within him and the audience are exorcised. So are the old songs and dances of exorcism and magic that restored the harmony of the whole. 

Salvatore Gatto is one of the most genuine representatives of the Neapolitan glove puppet tradition, the Guarattelle, and through his work has helped preserve a tradition that dates back to the 1400s. As much as he has participated in numerous festivals and events, he has never abandoned street theater.

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Sgadizza Academy

THE TWO DOCTORS.

Saturday, October 9, 9 p.m. Municipal Theater of Gambettola

text and direction Romano Danielli
With Romano Danielli, Marco Iaboli, William Melloni, Grazia Punginelli, Riccardo Pazzaglia and Mattia Zecchi
technician Alessandro Benussi
Classic puppet show from the Emilia-Romagna tradition. From 14 years old

Reduced ticket €5, full ticket €10
Reservation required

I due dottori is a comedy that surely originated from that of dell'Arte, which takes its cue from the exchange of characters. In this story Fagiolino, disguised as Balanzone, attempts to force Rosaura to marry an unwanted young man, all accompanied by misunderstandings and misunderstandings with Sganapino and the Emilian characters of the puppet theater.

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Hombre Collective

OUR HOUSE

Friday, October 8, 9:00 p.m.
Municipal Theater of Gambettola

directed by Riccardo Reina
with Angela Forti, Agata Garbuio, Aron Tewelde
with support from BRAT, Malerba Association, Teatro del Drago, UOT Association
Winner Scenario Prize Childhood 2020
Critics' Award Direction Under30 2021
Image and object theater. Ages 14 and up
Followed by discussion with the audience

Reduced ticket €5, full ticket €10
Reservation required

 

"What we deceive ourselves into fighting outside of us is already inside us, inside the everydayness of our lives, even if we are not aware of it." R. Scarpinato

Sept. 23, 2021: the Palermo Assize Court's ruling on the Trattativa Stato-Mafia trial brings a piece of the past back to the surface of our memory crowded with images. A piece of the past that, however recent, has already become history. A piece of history that, however decisive, is already in danger of falling into oblivion, with all its paradoxes and contradictions. A fundamental piece for understanding the puzzle of our present. A piece that has been tried in every way to hide, alter, ignore: a missing piece. Casa Nostra is not just a title: Nostra is the House we find ourselves inhabiting, with all that it contains. Ours, whether we want it or not, is that Weird Thing we inherited from the previous tenants. Ours is the playroom where we have hitherto been cooped up, where the children are left while the "grown-ups" take care of the serious stuff, those things the children are better off not hearing or seeing.

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Riccardo's Puppets

DANTESQUE TRAVELS and BURTING.

Conference-show to celebrate 30 years in business by Riccardo Pazzaglia
Saturday, October 9, 2021 4:30 p.m.
Municipal Theater of Gambettola

edited by Riccardo Pazzaglia
introduces Alberto Beltramo, librarian of the Lyda Borelli Artists' Retirement Home in Bologna

Reduced ticket €5, full ticket €10
Reservation required

 

It was 1991 when 11-year-old Riccardo Pazzaglia took his first professional steps acting with puppets. Today, after 30 years, the Bolognese puppeteer relives the main stages of his career as a Dantean journey, in an attempt to untangle himself in a 'dark forest,' the world of his beginnings, made of chaos between the old puppets destined to disappear and the now established and pressing new forms of figure theater. Like Dante, Riccardino will also find his guide, master Demetrio Presini, who will accompany him on a long journey of his career. The talk will be enriched by readings and projections of images from the book, written by Riccardo, Puppets in Bologna. The story of the wooden heads Minerva editions. An art book, skillfully illustrated by Wolfango, also divided, like Dante's poem, into three parts and organized like a puppet script. A play in which, in the last act, a heavenly glimmer is glimpsed in the sky of our puppets. During the lecture, in addition to Dr. Balanzone, the puppet Dante Alighieri will, of course, also take the floor.Bon voyage to all and ... W the puppets!

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Nasinsu Company

I'LL BE DAMNED

Sunday, October 10, 11:30 a.m.
Space in front of the Municipal Theater

by and with Sandra Pagliarani
shack assistance Emanuela Petralli/Brina Babini
dramaturgical collaboration Elena Baredi
Glove puppet show in shack - For everyone

Free event
Reservations required

What are keys used for? To lock, to possess or to open and offer? These questions, in the ancient game of wooden heads, the staging of this play attempts to answer. The story, retracing the classic structure of the comedies, tells the adventures of Miglio Gepponi, owner and keeper of keys that open his infinite treasures, a miserly and mean master, who would like to possess and have everything, even affections as well as sliced....persons even his lion-guard dog Ruggi. Gepponi is so stingy even of feelings that he would like to condemn his daughter to misery. But he will have to reckon with the cleverness and secret weapons of the servant girl Teresa who cares so much for Carolina! The audience will be led to reflect, with participatory laughter and in the best tradition of puppet theater, that true wealth does not depend on possession.

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Puppet factory Mangiafoco

THE OGRE IN THE BEAN

Sunday, October 10, 4:00 p.m.
Gambettola - Pertini Square

Text by Margherita Cennamo and Nader Ghazvinizadeh
loosely based on the English folk tale "Jack and the Beanstalk"
set design by Michele Cennamo
Puppet theater. For all

Free event
Reservation required

Do magic beans exist? And if they do exist, what lies within them?
A fairy tale about the magical and frightening transition from childhood to adulthood.

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Hypnotic Medical Theater

SAFARI

The adventure of little Verdi and his friend Violetta

Sunday, October 10, 5:00 p.m. Pertini Square - Gambettola

Puppeteers Patrizio Dall'Argine, Veronica Ambrosini
puppets, sets, costumes Patrizio Dall'Argine, Veronica Ambrosini
assistant Andrea Alberici
music Luca Maini
Puppet Theater. Ages 3 and up

Free event
Reservation required

In order to survive, the head comedian Lomé is still grappling with the problem of making his puppet theater relevant. He then invents a Format, the "fotosafari "and organizes a casting call. Among the candidates, young Violetta presents the most convincing project: she would like to bring balance to the excess of the "domestic" of our times, and to do so she plans to photograph the "wild" that lurks in the woods. The biggest problem is overcoming her fear of not being up to the task. Will he succeed? The spirits of the enchanted forest will try to help her....

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