Benigni's Dante on US Tour

Oscar winning actor and Italian comedian Roberto Benigni will be coming to America with his one-man monologue based on Dante's 'Inferno'.   Stopping in San Francisco and New York, 'TuttoDante' is Benigni's contemporary take on the classic text, mixed with off-the-cuff political jokes.  He has been performing the show in Italy for the last three years to over a million people.  Though known primarily as a clown, Benigni showcased his intellectual side.  In each performance he recites a canto in Italian of the 'Inferno' from memory and provides detailed explanations of the history and poetry in English.  Benigni still sees himself as more of a entertainer than scholar, and manages to slip in a bucket load of jokes about his nemesis, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, sending him to the deepest of Dante's depths.  As Benigni says, “Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary.  If was a tragic actor, I couldn’t allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown — very much.”

Lincoln Center Festival International Line-Up

Lincoln Center Festival: Theatre
July 7 to 26, 2009

“Les Éphémères”; Le Théâtre du Soleil (Ariane Mnouchkine) - France
“Boris Godunov”; Chekhov International Theater Festival (Declan Donnellan) - USA
“Villeggiatura”; Piccolo Teatro di Milano and Teatri Uniti - Italy
“Life and Fate”; Maly Drama Theater - Russia
“Kalkwerk”; Narodowy Stary Teatr - Poland
“Ivanov”; Katona Jozsef Theater - Hungary
“Peasant Opera”; Bela Pinter and Company - Hungary

La MaMa's International Symposium for Directors

10th Annual La MaMa INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM FOR DIRECTORS
Session 1: June 28 - July 12, 2009
Session 2: July 14 - July 28, 2009
La MaMa Umbria International, Spoleto, Italy

The International Symposium for Directors, sponsored by La MaMa Umbria is a training program for professional directors, choreographers and actors. Internationally renowned theatre artists conduct workshops and lecture/demonstrations. During the Symposium, participants will travel to Umbrian towns such as Orvieto, Perugia or Assisi to get a taste of Umbrian art and culture. Performances at local arts festivals and community fairs are also included. In addition, participating directors may conduct their own workshops to share insights and techniques with their colleagues.

Participants will be exposed to a variety of theatrical perspectives during the Symposium, from instructors who will expand their sense of what is possible in the theatre. Directors attending the Symposium see how prominent artists on the international scene create their unique productions. The workshops are participatory, and it is expected that all attendees will engage actively in the processes of the various teaching artists.

Each year La MaMa invites renowned theatre artists to participate as teaching artists during the Symposium. This summer, we host the following artists:

Session 1:
Liz Diamond (USA)“The Word and the Actor”
Kama Ginkas (Russia)“Exploring Chekhov”
Takeshi Kawamura (Japan)“Between the Word and the Body”
Meredith Monk (USA)“Landscapes of Sound and Movement”

Session 2:
Daniel Banks (USA)“We the Griot – Performance in the Age of Hip Hop”
Romeo Castellucci (Italy)“The Eye and the Gaze”
Leigh Fondakowski (USA)“Moment Work”
Dimitris Papaioannou (Greece)“Spectacle and Emotion”

All artists are subject to change. For more information and registration form, visit: www.lamama.orgor call (212) 254-7572.

IFA InteatroFestival Academy

IFA InteatroFestival Academy is the name of the professional artistic project promoted and founded in 2006 by Inteatro. Every year, young artists of various nationalities have the possibility to stay for a long period in Villa Nappi, in order to work with established artists.

RECIPIENTS
The program has 12 vacancies for young artists / performers aged between 18 and 32 years, of different nationalities, who want to gain experience in research and training for the development of their practice.

COURSE STRUCTURE
IFA 2009 will start on Monday May 18th and will end on July 4th 2009. During their weeks in residency, the participants will explore their working methods and theatrical languages, with international artistic directors and performers, who will guide them in their personal and artistic growth.

Among the Mentors who have already confirmed their participation: Rosa Casado (Madrid), Cláudia Dias (Lisbon), Gustavo Frigerio (Rome), Jan Ritsema (St Erme Outre et Ramecourt) and Aydin Teker (Istanbul).

The participants will have the possibility to develop their personal projects within the planned working sessions. The course is intensive, and attendance is mandatory. The working sessions will take place in the morning, afternoons or evenings as decided by the mentors and for a maximum of 8 hours per day in the spaces of Villa Nappi and Teatro della Luna in Polverigi. Days off will also be agreed with the Mentors. Click here for the full application.

Italian Comedienne May Get Jail For Pope Joke

Sabrina Guzzanti, an Italian comedienne, is facing up to 5 years in jail for saying Pope Benedict XVI would go to hell and be tormented by gay demons. Guzzanti made the comments at a Rome rally in July. The crowd loved it, but not so the Italian officials. She is facing prosecution for "offending the honor of the sacred and inviolable person" of the Pope. The July rally was called to protest against alleged interference by the Vatican and the Catholic Church in Italian affairs, from abortion to gay rights, but also to attack the Prime Minister Berlusconi for passing 'ad personam' laws to protect his own interests and avoid prosecution on corruption. Dario Fo, the Nobel prize-winning playwright, said that applying the outdated law would even have led to the prosecution of Dante, since "he put a Pope in the Inferno as well, namely Boniface VIII". Read the full article here.

Italy's Starving Cultural Institutions

Italian arts institutions are in a pickle and they only have themselves to blame for electing Berlusconi to a third term. (At least us in the US are constitutionally protecting from having Bush serve another term.) Below are some excerpts from a NYTimes article with a link to the full text here.

"Arts institutions across Italy are reeling from a sweeping round of budget cuts adopted this summer by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's four-month-old conservative government. More than $1.3 billion has been slashed from the culture ministry’s budget for the next three years. The cuts have affected hundreds of museums and archaeological sites that depend on state money, as well as opera houses, theaters, filmmakers, libraries, archives and conservators of monuments and artworks; they also threaten the lush countryside, which the Culture Ministry is expected to protect.

Weak economic growth and stricter EU limits on government budget deficits have forced member countries to reduce public arts financing. But critics here grumble of particular shortsightedness in Italy. While the nation touts its cultural heritage as an essential component of national economic growth, critics say the government fails to preserve this precious resource. (“It is our oil,” Sandro Bondi, the culture minister, told the Turin daily La Stampa this week.) Italy’s most recent operating budget allocated just 0.28 percent to the culture ministry."

Venice Biennale’s International Theatre Workshop

For the first time, the Venice Biennale’s Theatre section, directed by Maurizio Scaparro, plans its activity over a period of two years and around a single theme, the Mediterranean. The International Theatre Workshop, which will take place in Venice from October 27th to November 27th 2008, develops around the idea of theatre as a “construction site for art”, in which the works of tomorrow may take root and sediment, while offering the young and future artists an opportunity for an educational experience, the communication of knowledge and a direct rapport within a research project.

Many of the workshops scheduled for November, will later flow into the 40th International Theatre Festival –which will be held shortly before Carnival, from February 20th to March 8th 2009– this time in the form of performances that will follow the presentation of some of the development phases during the International Theatre Workshop.

The Workshop and the Festival are inspired by the theme of the Mediterranean, seen as “a complex place of encounters and currents, which implies the movement of peoples, histories and cultures, which underlines the continuous sense of historic transformation and cultural tradition that makes it a place of continuous transition” (I. Chambers). The first part of the project takes place along a journey that begins with our literary and cultural roots to end with the burning realities of the history of our times -from Palestine to Lebanon, from Israel to the Balkans.

The International Theatre Workshop will be distributed across the five great themes that express the many facets of the Mediterranean: Shakespeare’s Sea, Myths Rediscovered, Once upon a Time, The Lingua Franca of the Mediterranean Ports, and Sans papiers.

Selection of candidates will take place by considering the curriculums sent; the artistic director and the curator of each specific workshop will be in charge of the selection process.

Enrollment and attendance to the workshops are entirely free of charge. There will be no payment or fee to attend the workshops. There will be no grants, free accommodation or meal tickets for attendees. Selected candidates will have to get to the place where workshops are held with their own means of transport and at one’s own expense. Learn how to participate here.

Spoleto Goes Gallic

Opening weekend at the Italian Spoleto festival this past weekend had a heavy dose of the French, both old (La Seconde Surprise de l’Amour) and new (Perthus). And lest we forget everyone’s favorite Frenchman (or at least honorary European), Robert Wilson, bringing some much needed international luster to the event. Here's a link.

Spoleto Reunited

This is from an article in the NYTimes about the American and Italian Spoleto festivals. Read more here.

"The Spoleto Festival U.S.A. and its long-lost partner in Italy, the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Umbria, have announced that they will renew an association that ended 15 years ago.

The two arts festivals say they are discussing at least one joint opera production for the summer of 2009. Spoleto U.S.A.’s music director, Emmanuel Villaume, is to conduct at the Italian festival this summer. And there is even talk about forming a single orchestra, though that possibility so far appears remote. Beyond that, officials refused to offer more details."

Pippa Bacca Remembered

A tragic story about Italian performance artist, Pippa Bacca, 33, and her murder by a Turkish driver who picked her up. Ms. Bacca and her colleague, Silvia Moro, 37, where hitchhiking from Italy to the Balkans down to the Middle East, both wearing white wedding dresses, to promote messages of peace and “marriage between different people and nations”. Ms. Moro last saw her friend in Istanbul on March 19, where they split up and agreed to meet in Beirut. Ms. Bacca’s naked body was found on April 11 in some bushes outside a Turkish village. Though no official death has been given, local authorities say Ms. Bacca appears to have been raped and strangled. Memorial services were help yesterday. I strongly encourage you to read the full article in the NYTimes and visit http://www.bridesontour.fotoup.net/ to learn more about Ms. Bacca and her work.

Going to the Dogs

A proposed law, submitted to the Tuscan regional parliament, would allow pet owners in Tuscany to take their cats, dogs and other animals to any sort of public place - including museums, cinemas and theatres. If approved, it would open up new possibilities for millions of tourists who visit the museums of Florence and Siena each year, as well as Tuscany's famed countryside, which includes the Chianti area. The bill's sponsor, Fabio Roggiolani, predicts the bill would be law by this summer. "The majority [of regional lawmakers] are in agreement", he told the newspaper, Corriere della Sera.

Some well-known Italian animal lovers expressed misgivings at the prospect of people watching Pirandello or Puccini with their poodle. Cristina Acidini, the government official responsible for the museums in Florence said: "I adore animals. But I don't think a museum is the best place [for them]." And the film, theatre and opera director, Franco Zeffirelli, whose Rome villa is packed with dogs, said: "I'd never take them to La Scala."