NATURALNESS

4
English
Icaro, one year later
Everything started keeping a list of names in a hand. Names,
surnames, professional skills, nationalities, all of them were
different but linked each other by a physical and mental place: our theatre.
More than one year ago, that list convinced us to create this
magazine. It contained the names of La Baracca’s members.
They are more than one hundred people who choose to sign a
declaration, engaging themselves to “share the cooperative’s
aim and purposes”, more than one hundred people who trusted in us and decided to stay near us in some way anyway,
also without children or living on the other part of the world.
We thought we should have to reciprocate, doing more than
our playing theatre…and mostly we knew they could give us
something.
So, we thought to create a new space where combine and share thoughts, ideas, visions. That was a magazine.
We declared immediately, on the first issue: in our opinion,
when words are needed, they are beautiful and, behind their
sense and their sound, they reveal tracks of their authors.
Continued on page 2
ICARO
nuova serie
ISSN 2421-0811
Quadrimestrale - Anno 2 - n.3
novembre 2015
La Baracca soc.coop. sociale ONLUS
Redazione: Teatro Testoni Ragazzi
via Matteotti 16 - 40129 Bologna
www.testoniragazzi.it
Registrazione del Tribunale di Bologna
n. 5211 del 31 ottobre 1984
NATURALNESS
fourth issue of Icaro is about “naturalness”. It’s a
T hefascinating
words, which powerfully bring us into the
fiction’s world. “To be natural, conformable to the nature,
it’s especially used about attitude, behavior, speaking and
treating ways, or artistic and stylistic expressions that
seem spontaneous, frank, simple” (from Treccani on-line).
Doing anything naturally doesn’t mean being natural, but
seeming natural, that is true. So we are in the fiction’s
world, that can be connected with falsehood, but also with
the truth. Fiction can be duplicity, deceit, falsehood, lie,
but also what it’s possible to create using fantasy: creation, imagination, invention and representation.
This is linked to theatre, where everything is false, where,
into fiction or using it, sometimes we can tell the truth and
where sometimes fiction becomes not more than falsehood, when actor plays or shows no more than his “art”.
This is the difference between the good and the bad theatre.
Continued on page 2
Photographs included in this issue tell about many journeys undertaken
by Ambasciatore [“Ambassador”, ed.], La Baracca - Testoni Ragazzi’s project
that wants bring free shows and theatre workshops to the children
who live in bad conditions about social and economics.
As “Ambassadors/story tellers”, till now we have met children
who live in Guatemala from Indian communities, in Mexican Chiapas,
in ex-Jugoslavia from refugees camps, in Brasil from favelas,
in Romania from orphanages, in Mozambico
and Zambia from reception centers…
We have told our stories and listened to their ones.
Continued from page 1
Continued from page 1
Icaro, one year later
NATURALNESS
Our aim was creating a net of considerations that could
put children and young people in the center.
The pretext: a topic, a focus around which rotate different points of view, from artistic to educational ones.
Quality, Divergence, Lightness and Naturalness. Seated
around a table, every time the small editorial staff of Icaro looked for an interesting cue to tell about its idea of
childhood, adolescence, art and culture, and every time
‒ I believe magically ‒ finding something to talk about
was not difficult. That was till last meeting on September 2015. One year after the beginning. Twelve months
are not a lot as the life of a magazine, especially in case
of quarterly issues, but I think that they can suggest the
direction that has been taken yet.
One year later, the paper of my notes kept at the editorial meeting has been filled with suggestions for future
issues: a dozen possible focus, which means at least two
years and a half for the magazine.
So, I think it is worth going on. Going on spinning thoughts, sharing them and listening those of anyone else has
a lot of own tracks to leave us.
In both there are masks, but in the first one masks reveal
and discover something, in the other one they veil and cover.
The audience, especially children who have less superstructures and conventions than adults, feel almost ever if
fiction is falsehood or creation, because it needs to share
and take part to the show. The audience needs to join the
journey into the fiction and this happen actively, with the
company of an actor who act as an excited leader, letting his
true emotions coming out from his mask.
The art of naturalness as the mask which reveals anything
doesn’t belong just to theatre: it’s belong to the universe
of relationships, to each moment when we do experience,
when we share a story. As a permanent audience, we listen to the lesson of our parent, our teacher, our friend and
more it fascinates and involves us, more we are curious
about who could be behind it and take care of us.
(translation by Barbara Pizzo)
(translation by Barbara Pizzo)
NATURALNESS
Editorial staff
Icaro editorial staff is made by a group of supporting members
(both employees and not) of La Baracca – Testoni Ragazzi: some
of them, like Roberto Frabetti, author, actor, director and administrator, are “old ones” and some of them are younger but just as
passionate, like Antonella Dalla Rosa, actress and international-projects coordinator, Enrico Montalbani, actor, author and
cartoonist, and Francesca Nerattini, graphic designer, in charge
of promotion activities and editorial projects; three others are
brand new contributors, loyal playgoers of the theatre like Dario
Canè, hairdresser and dramatist, Gianluca D’Errico, teacher, and
Beatrice Vitali, pedagogist of the Gualandi Foundation. Different
experiences and perspectives that cross each others to give birth
to visions and thoughts that go around childhood and adolescence.
For the english version: translations by Anna Cocchi, Bruno
Frabetti, Letizia Olivieri, Barbara Pizzo.
A matter of gestures
by Marina Manferrari
3
Nutshells
by Dario Cané
5
Hand-crafted gestures
by Alberto Rabitti and Beatrice Vitali
7
Naturalness and sub-text
by Roberto Frabetti
9
A knowing smile
11
THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS
by Antonella Dalla Rosa
THE EXPERIENCES
Servant of three masters
by Brigitte Korn-Wimmer
12
If History calls…the river Piave whispers
by Bruno Frabetti
14
The globetrotting actor
by Bruno Cappagli
16
Telling fairy tales
by Anna Paola Corradi
18
COMIC STRIP
A Boat
by Enrico Montalbani
2
19
A MATTER OF GESTURES
by Marina Manferrari
Head of Education and school services of Education and School Institution of Municilapity of Bologna.
Friend and Supporting Member of La Baracca - Testoni Ragazzi.
on “naturalness” leads me to think about some of the themes which are typical of our work, as educators.
R eflecting
Perhaps, it’s too much to define them as typical themes, but, for sure, these are trending lines or horizons of meanings
that are increasingly shared.
Here are some examples of what I mean:
• An inclination to make space in the busy life that surrounds children, the pursuit of an equilibrium between fullness
and emptiness, a balance between adults needs and children’s ones;
• a tendency to reduce the number of plastic materials in children’s play in favour of natural ones, which are
more interesting from a tactile point of view and allow unlimited opportunities; the reduce the number of toys
commercially available, which leave little space for children’s contribution to their creativity and imagination;
• taking care not to block or curb children’s thoughts, nor imposing upon their life, but leaving doors open to awe
and wonder. Giving them time and space to take control of any kind of experience we are offering them, in their
own and original way. The aim is to leave sediment;
• a pursuit of living within their timescale, even in school life, which should not be an accelerated process, but
one that comes in a more natural way. In this time of fast changes and quick communication, this latter point
is a problematic theme that deserves to be analyzed in a deeper way.
Together with a lot of educators and teachers we are trying to reinterpret the importance of outdoor activities,
working very closely with natural elements: a little corner of the ground, a muddy digging pit, a puddle,
knurled wood, a bark filled with insects...these provide amazing opportunities to discover and investigate.
It’s just a matter of looks: the educators’ look has to know and follow the children’s looks, It also has to know
how to lead children into our project, in an intentional way.
It’s just a matter of looks – of looking and following the look.
The educators’ look has to know and follow that of the children, and know how to lead them into ours
with awareness and intention.
It’s a kind of sensibility increasingly shared, leaning towards simplicity and lightness. “Lightness” in
this case isn’t levity, because you can be light and deep at the same time.
Simplicity isn’t a simplification, complexity is different from complicated. We are living inside
complex systems, so to face complexity might even be an exciting challenge, much more interesting
than complications. Children love to play intensely and do difficult things and we have to allow them
to do it. So here we are talking about “Simplicity” as the “pursuit of the essential and of beauty”, a
kind of deep research.
Antonio Gariboldi, talking about a research on creativity1, links the category of simplicity to a
creative kind of gesture, remembering that this category is also utilized in the field of science:
“In accordance with the principle of economy, the grace of an uncomplicated situation is
highlighted...An easy solution is generally considered much more creative, because of its
originality and newness”.
If a kind of aesthetic of “simplicity” exists within the sciences, it also happens within
education: it depends on the spaces, the materials and the proposals we offer to children.
Perhaps, the “art of naturalness”, as Roberto Frabetti writes in this edition of the magazine,
belongs to the universe of relationships, and this is the aspect I care about the most.
Within the relationship with children, each communicative gesture, as each familiar
gesture, can carry an emotional and expressive relevance.
In a crèche, for example, there is a colleague singing the song “the tail of the snake”: in
doing this she is creating a micro-world; a creative suspension from reality is allowed
in the children’s mind, without leaving the real world or escaping from reality.
1
It’s hard to think about difficult things: as talking to a deaf person or showing a rose to the blind one. Children, you have to learn how to do
difficult things: as giving a hand to a blind man, singing for a deaf, set free the slaves who believed to be free. (Letter to children, Gianni Rodari)
3
It’s still a matter of looks, the way we look around us,
remaining in touch with the purpose that echoes inside us;
it’s a matter of gestures, reawakened gestures, not faded or
erased by everyday life.
If a piece of paper accidentally falls down, a child might take
and give it to the teacher. She might move it up and down,
let it fall again, and for all the children looking at it this is
already becoming a plane, or a boat ... a workshop about
lightness.
These are small daily moments in life, which are repeated
millions of times during the process of education.
Another example, if, while an educator is telling a story to the
class, something outside the window catches their attention,
it gives rise to a small, tangential story that happens within
the tale that the teacher is telling.
It’s important to know how to look, know how to add value
to little experiences, internalize, transform…
Children’s behavior has to reflect our educative influence; it
has to be like a frame for them, a kind of scenography which
could support them.2 In this way, children’s creativity meets
with adults’ one. And then, a spoon could become a cub, a
hand become a leaf, a bird wing or even a butterfly.
This is the ability of doing poetry with the daily grind; this
is the attitude we have to be as educators and it needs work
and time because it has not developed out of nowhere.
It’s about finding the poetry of everyday life, an attitude that
has not come out of nowhere.
Beyond this “naturalness” of gestures which are hidden
inside daily actions, there is a kind of knowledge that is
developing, but needs time, work and passion to grow.
Training is an essential part of education, which goes along
with our way of acting, but let us to think about the training
process itself.
Reflection and practice come together in the field of
education, so, thinking about our professionalism allows us
2
A University of Modena and Reggio Emilia research on ideas
and representations of creativity for crash educators and nursery school
teachers, made for the CreaNet Project by EU (Comenius EU Program).
Look at the text by A. Gariboldi, titled “Positive backgrounds. Creativity in
educators and teachers words” (Internazional conference on childhood –
IUSVE 2013)
4
to be aware of our feelings, understanding our behaviour.
Those who work with children have to be exposed to culture
at the highest level; and that has to be followed through their
career path, a process which is not easy or automatic, but
allows the basics of education to be taken into educational
relationships. In this way, basics become knowledge and
knowledge can be spread through gestures.
Wise gestures, sustained by a such deeper kind of knowledge
that allows freedom of action in daily contexts.
I am quoting Francesco Caggio when he says that naturalness
is the outcome of a growth process, and also of the reflection
on ourselves and, in the end, integration between theory
and practice. It’s the result of great self-control.
If I am allowed to extend beyond my basics, it means that I
have acquired these methods deeply.
That’s the game of arts: external frameworks which suddenly
become or could become internal ones.
It’s spontaneity of reaction, when my experiences and
knowledges are incorporated. It’s improvisation at the best
level, which become better than technical abilities, a kind of
knowledge which is properly natural, in its deep humanistic
meaning.
I had the chance to observe some educators moving, during
the intimate and delicate moment of changing babies’
diapers; they did it in a such natural way that it looked like
they were dancing. In this way, I am talking about a kind of
knowledge which is so much deep to be natural.
Then, I had the luck to follow some educators during a long
term educational path in theatre. Now, when I look at the
way they move, I am amazed because there isn’t anything
bashed out: as in their gestures, as in their voice tone.
The direction and the intensity of their looks are always full
of expressive intention, in each moment of the routine of
crèche life.
There isn’t anything artificial or unnatural, but rather the
opposite. That is because just hard work allows educators
to be at the heart of an authentic kind of communication
with the world of childhood. It allows you to take the
extraordinary into the ordinary, bringing quality into
everyday life.
(translation by Bruno Frabetti)
NUTSHELLS
by Dario Cané
L
“
O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell
And count myself a king of infinite space
Were it not that I have bad dreams”
Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act 2, scene 2)
uca crossing the street without looking - Brunamonti’s
lay-up - Lidia’s rolling pin on the cutting board - My
father’s hands cutting hair - Me lacing up my shoes.
These are the nutshells I am going to write about shortly, but
before I do that, I’ll tell you why I chose Shakespeare’s quote. It
was not because I wanted to show off, Shakespeare is one of the
greatest author of all time and his work is always useful in tales.
Hamlet is a sort of perfect, centred being, and were it not for the evil
thoughts about vengeance tormenting him, he could really enjoy life:
King of infinite space bounded in a nutshell. To him, who is bound not to
go there, Heaven is exactly that: being the master of his freedom in spite of
the constraints of the body.
The reason why a true Hamlet never lived in history, is that in life we don’t
value the moments when we are centred, perhaps because if we focused on those
moments, we would automatically lose our centre and our balance. I think sometimes
it happens to all of us, to make a perfect gesture exactly because we’re not paying attention
to it. And we feel at ease, free to think about something else. In spite of everything else, of all
the things we need to pay attention to, and that we find hard to do, that “easy” gesture makes us
free.
So, here I am, trying to see with different eyes all those movements I somehow found hard, that were like
prisons where freedom cannot really be felt, but it’s there.
Nutshells.
Number one. It was hard to keep up with my friend Luca when we walked from his house to the sports arena where the
basketball game was going to be played. We were 13, and I had grown up in the suburbs, so I was in awe before his naturalness
in walking the streets of the city centre, changing route all the time and never getting lost. He was in a state of total freedom.
King of infinite space bounded in a nutshell. I wasn’t like that.
Many other times I wasn’t like that,
Number two. If I think about those years and about basketball, I think of Roberto Brunamonti1.
Brunamonti was poetry in movement. His lay-up doesn’t leave my mind, as well as his elegance in shooting off the backboard.
It didn’t matter how fast he was running, if he was counterattacking or cutting through the defence like a knife. When the
Virtus team captain bounced the ball off the backboard, he looked like a swallow riding the current. I played basketball, too,
but my lay-up was not at all like Brunamonti’s. My lay-up was tense, the ball bounced off the backboard and went spinning,
awkwardly missing the basket.
1
Roberto Brunamonti is a retired Italian basketball player, who won the silver medal with his national team at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow,
four national championships (1984, 1993, 1994, 1995), one Italian Cup in 1984 and one Italian Supercup in 1995.
He started his career in Rieti in 1975 and joined the Virtus Sinudyne Bologna in 1982. He played with the Virtus Bologna until he ended his career in 1996
after 21 years in the Italian basketball league. Source: Wikipedia. [translator’s note]
5
For nutshell number three, I’ll jump forward in time. A couple of years ago, in summer, my family and I made fettuccine for our
Sicilian hosts. While I was rolling the pasta out - struggling to achieve the right thickness - I thought about my grandmother,
Lidia, and her harmonious gestures while she rolls out perfect pasta sheets. How many pasta sheets should I roll out to
achieve the perfect thickness for tortellini? Tortellini. Now, while I’m writing, I can also see Lidia’s swift movements while
closing the tortellini. Hundreds of tiny tortellini lying on a cutting board. How many cutting boards do you need to fill before
you can reproduce such a wonder?
Number four: the family art. Every day, I see my dad giving haircuts. His body orbits around the head of the client like a
satellite to always keep the right angle. At every movement, his comb separates and collects locks of hair and then runs them
through his fingers: his index and middle fingers align the hair and then the scissors do their job. Line after line, he shapes
a soft, harmonious cut around his client’s face. Once in a while, I hold his scissors and think that my fingers do look like his.
I move the scissors as he does, but the elegance that moves his fingers is nowhere to be seen in mine. How many heads he
knew before that gesture became something natural?
Number five. The last nutshell. These are the years during which my children struggle to learn how to lace up their shoes. So,
very slowly, I show them all the steps to make the knot. And it’s not an easy knot. Now that that gesture is so deep-rooted and
that I don’t even think about it while I make it, the memory of old struggles emerges, brought back to life by the complaints
and snorts of the children.
The children. To talk about the spontaneity of children like a gift that is soon lost is a cliché. We smile at and sometimes are touched
by children’s spontaneous acts. We see them as something true and original, that keeps us tied to the idea of “noble savage” and to
the animal world - a natural, wild world - that gave us life.
More rarely we are touched in front of works of art, but in those cases the spontaneity we experience is of another kind. Normally,
what strikes us is the perfection of the artist’s gesture.
And this is really what I am trying to write about.
The small constraints that define our actions are not only prisons, they are the practices that make us experience real freedom, but
how we struggle to feel free and get rid of the constraints of learning!
Our body, our thoughts, our gestures have been moving inside nutshells since we were children. Art influences us very early in our
life, usually when we realise that no nutshell can actually be our universe. It’s a crucial moment because there’s not turning back
and we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of a journey.
As happens to astronaut Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey when he leaves Jupiter’s orbit. In the movie, Bowman is lost in infinite
in space: a nice, big nutshell that reverses Hamlet’s metaphor: in 2001, Bowman really becomes the king of the universe, a sort of
God, the Star Child. And what about us?
Without becoming Star Children, or Hamlet, we have so many opportunities to be kings and queens, inside our nutshells. All we
have to do is let the others see them, as happens in theatre. The trick is not to give it too much importance, and it works. Somehow,
it works.
(translation by Letizia Olivieri)
6
HAND-CRAFTED GESTURES
by Alberto Rabitti and Beatrice Vitali
Alberto Rabitti is an “artisan-engineer”. He designs furniture and spaces for children,
he is a woodworker and an artist who creates his works with natural materials.
He lives on the hills near Reggio Emilia.
the beginning, all I did was disassembling. I disassembled, then disassembled, then disassembled again”. This is
“A thow
Sergio, an artisan of the Reggio Emilia area, became a skilled chair-mender, mastering the same ancient and
repetitive art of his mother’s: he was too young to learn when she was working, so he postponed it to 60 years later. And
he learnt the process backwards. He wanted to be a chair-mender and he started from the broken chairs. With gestures
he repeated thousands of times, he discovered the right pace, the one that created the weaving patterns and their secrets.
The first letter of the alphabet is the letter A. Before we can write a word, we need to learn every letter, but what really
matters is not only to be able to write each letter correctly. What matters is the ability to harmonise them, blend them, or
mix them without letting the others realise. Similarly, the movements of an apprentice who repeats the same gesture endless times, needs to be sharp and to become a mechanical movement, in order to allow the mind to see beyond it, no longer
focused on that sequence of actions.
“Every day is not like the day before”. A few days ago, Paolo, a carpenter who lives on the hills near Bologna, said these
words while doing things that - to him- were obvious and natural. Unexpectedly, he pointed out a simple but deep piece
of knowledge, rooted in the souls of those who not only live at one with nature, but fully depend on it. The workers like
him cannot only rely on their objectives and work orders, but also on the conditions in which they live and work, on the
materials they use, because everything is alive and changing. The dialogue we establish with what surrounds us is deeper
than it seems. There’s wood, with its grains and knots; there are the trees, each with its own qualities; there’s humidity, the
weather, the cutting times, the waiting times; there are the structural rules of trunks, which are never taught and that you
only learn with experience.
Repetition allows to find a pace. Mistakes allow to acquire awareness. To plane a piece of wood, you cannot simply repeat
the gesture over and over again: every piece of wood is different. To repeat the gesture without paying attention to the
grains and knots, means not being able to see the whole picture. And after a while, it becomes a blind habit suitable for an
assembly line. The gesture creates the pace, but this is not enough, however perfected it might be; the mind has to foresee
the next steps. At this point, the eye sees what the hands do in a different way, and it guides them towards new choices. The
true artisan masters the process, not only repetition. It’s a kind of complete knowledge, not a segmented one, where causes
and effects are kept together. After all, there cannot be farmers specialised in growing crops in only one season. Hands, eyes
and mind work in synergy, harmonising knowledge and experience. In this complex process, mistakes are not rare and they
inevitably become silent teachers. The real mistake would be to avoid them.
7
Pace, awareness and ability to see the whole picture are the threshold to
creativity, the starting points to find new solutions, beyond gestures and
pace. It’s like riding a bike with a destination in mind.
You need to repeat the same movement all over again to really be free to
find your own way.
So, after learning the chair-mending processes (plant identification,
harvesting techniques, woodwork, weaving the ropes...), Sergio has invented amazing mechanisms with chairs, putting together dishwasher parts and bicycle tyres. Very recently, aged 80, he has found a way
to make umbrella handles produce a sound, simply by observing an
ocarina player. Similarly, using wood, Paolo’s works are all different. He creates chairs that look like thrones, seeing in every trunk
the right shape for his creation.
Enzo Rabitti, leather craftsman from Reggio Emilia, has dedicated his whole life to making leather belts and bags. After only a
few years of work, all he needed was a sharp knife, a couple of
paper patterns, two sewing machines and a calculator. All the
rest was unnecessary.
Today, his workshop is closed, but if one of his former clients came in, they would think the artisan just went out
for a coffee, because nothing’s changed. The knife is still
there, telling us that we need to be able to see the whole
picture.
If we watch these three masters at work, we would probably think their secret is in their hands, so big and rough.
We always worry about making our mind work, even
at a very early age, filling it with knowledge... but
what about our hands?
(translation by Letizia Olivieri)
8
NATURALNESS AND SUB-TEXT
by Roberto Frabetti
I
s naturalness a skill that we acquire? Is it always part of the world of fiction?
Or can we say that there’s also a spontaneous naturalness?
I think there is, and I also think - if you pardon the pun - that we can be spontaneously natural.
When this happens, it’s a moment of truth.
At the same time, I think that being able to reach - through a complex process - a state of naturalness
that is perceived as such by those in front of us, is a basic skill the people involved in human
relationship and live communication should acquire. For example, actors and teachers.
So, there is a spontaneous naturalness that belongs to fleeting moments and to all those human
beings - children and adults - who, through art, have been able to create a window between the
inside and the outside.
These human beings don’t lie, because in that moment they can’t or don’t want to.
Then, there’s also a constructed kind of naturalness. This is the art that is part of positive
fiction, of creative processes, and that is able to open that window just when we need it, when
it is necessary and useful.
Constructed naturalness also allows us to touch a moment of truth in those who stand before us.
Although constructed, that truth is real, because we can clearly see the human being behind
the mask.
To judge someone as natural means to feel they are true. And when we are in front of someone
we feel natural and true, then what he or she tells us feels more powerful, and it touches and
involves us. in a special way.
To be able to express ourselves naturally is never a certain fact. Certainty belongs to no one, and it
doesn’t even belong to great actors, who have spent their lives working to achieve it.
There are many conscious and unconscious factors that can influence the balance between communication
and perception.
Sometimes a balance is found; sometimes it’s not. And it is not just a matter of professionalism or age.
In cinema, there are so many children that feel so intense, so natural in fiction. How do they do it?
Why do they display a mastery only the best cinema actors have?
And how can children and teenagers be so natural on stage, when they know they are exactly there, perhaps during a
collective performance involving all the children in the class?
And how can children be so clearly faking in school plays or TV shows for young prodigies?
This faking resembles that of the great theatre actors when they get lost in their need to control their audience and
receive their approval, and they forget they should instead listen to them.
So, always faking, they represent stereotyped and superstructured feelings, absolutely devoid of any naturalness.
For an actor, the search for naturalness springs from knowing how important details are in the creation of any
expressive sign: words, gestures, sounds... What quality do we put in our thinking and creating those signs, which
are in turn presented and given to the audience? In what space do we do it? With what pace?
To be able to make the audience perceive a natural dimension is essential for any actor.
And naturalness needs all expressive signs to be harmonious.
Words, gestures and sounds need to flow together.
I don’t know how to achieve naturalness and many times, at the end of a show, I realise I have been stiff
or affected. It’s a personal kind of research that each of us needs to develop by learning to listen to
ourselves and to our audience: a theatre audience or a classroom audience, if the actor/actress is a
teacher.
But I would like to leave you with a suggestion.
I think it is difficult to find a natural dimension if we are not aware that, behind a text, there
are always one or more sub-texts that are essential to give substance to the text, to make it
credible and touching for those who listen.
5
There’s always a sub-text. Simply ask yourself and analyse
how many aspects you have to take into account when you
listen. From posture to facial expressions, from rhythm to
gestures, from the clarity of the context to the accuracy of
the details...
There are many elements that build a sub-text, and they
are what we cannot see, but make the text plausible and
visible.
When the sub-text is not understood or is rejected, the text
becomes fake.
How many times did it happen to you, when you were at
school, that the teacher made you read a very important
poem but you couldn’t find anything touching in it?
Perhaps, the poem was read with that “expressiveness”
that brings a work of art out of its context.
Now take Ungaretti’s poem “I am a creature” - that is part
of the collection of poems “The Buried Harbour” of 1916 and try to read it with a “nice voice”, as my teachers used to
instruct me when I was in school.
Like this stone
of San Michele
so cold
so hard
so drained
so unyielding
so totally
lifeless.
Like this stone
are my tears
unseen.
Through living
is death
atoned1
Beautiful words turn into empty words, if we don’t work
on the sub-text, on the why’s and the disenchantment of
a twenty-year-old interventionist after a year behind the
1
English translation: Bastianutti, D., A Major Selection of the
Poetry of Ungaretti, Toronto, Exile Editions, 1997; p. 69.
10
trench in the North-East of Italy during World War I.
The sub-texts needs to feed on our disenchantment,
weariness and fear, as well as on the materiality of the
stone, which embodies these elements.
We will never be Ungaretti, because we are what we are;
but if we were, we could try to make tose words vibrate
and live.
To an actor/reader/storyteller, to analyse the sub-text
means to build a mental image of the setting of the story;
it means to smell it with your nose and feel it on your skin.
Before making the others see, you need to see yourself first.
Hänsel and Gretel. How can I tell my audience about the
woods, if I can’t see them while I describe them? I need
this simple word - “woods” - to contain the smell of the
moss, the sensation of dampness, the light through the
trees, the soft sounds, the sudden silences, the beauty of
a flower, a stone, a nest, a winter wren flying, a branch on
the ground, the top of the trees, always so distant. How can
I tell my audience whether the woods attract me or scare
me? Whether I’m cold or just fine? Whether the woods
are a place where I’m afraid to get lost or where I want to
experience something, and therefore I want to be able to
get lost? What are the woods for me, as an environment
and as a symbolic place? My audience might not ask
themselves all these questions, and they might not see all
the images this word evoked in me. Perhaps they will see
different images and ask themselves different questions. I
don’t know what kind of images and questions, but there
will be a lot of them, because the woods where Hänsel and
Gretel live their adventure have to be real. If it isn’t, then
everything around them disappears, and the storyteller
disappears with them, because they haven’t become
woods themselves and they have been unable to let their
complexity and inner richness emerge.
The simple fascination of naturalness.
(translation by Letizia Olivieri)
A KNOWING SMILE
by Antonella Dalla Rosa
family, maybe yours, maybe mine, maybe
A random
another one; this doesn’t matter. One like any other.
ages with small, delicate and accurate gestures. Then the
action changes and the conquest of space starts: running,
jumping, pausing.
A first time at theatre, an ordinary theatre. Or maybe not.
Bodies intertwining, and suddenly a length of cloth, tossed
One where the shows are designed for them, the children,
by one of the dancers, splits the air. The eyes look up, with
even the youngest ones. She, the young girl, is one year old;
awe, amazement. Some child speaks and comments on
she is with her mum, or maybe with her dad. Are they curiwhat he sees, someone draws close to his mum, and someous? Anxious? Worried? Excited? All at one time? What are
one else would be willing to launch himself on stage, if
their expectations?
it wasn’t for his dad holding him back softly, with a hug.
They are in the theatre hall. What do they see? What catchThe girl at her first show seeks her parent’s encouraging,
es their attention? If I were a two and a half feet little
knowing smile. They are absorbed in an artistic experigirl, what would catch my attention? Images? The walls’
ence, intimate and collective at the same time. Forgetting
height? Lights? Or the fact that there are other children?
about the outside world, about the time passing, to be
What would make this girl feel comfortable in a completely
here, in the present, but also somewhere else. Away, benew place? And what about his parent? Perhaps being welyond four walls, in a space that does not exist,
comed by people who smile and convey warmth
but that exists inside every spectator. A
and hospitality. People who are attentive
personal and common space. Togethand sensitive, who are able to underer, children with children, children
stand whether it is better to leave
with adults, adults with adults.
some time for adjustment, wavThe show is over. Among
ing hello from far away, or if
smiles and rounds of apthey can come closer and get
plause, there are also gobto know the little spectator
smacked children, and
while her parent is looking
eyes staring blankly at the
for the tickets in his coat
horizon. Maybe they’re
pocket.
thinking about nothing,
And then? Then you’ll
or maybe they’re mentalneed a space designed
ly going back through the
for waiting, where waitfrom
show to look for the deing-time becomes also a
Charter of Children’s Rights
tails that struck them most.
beautiful moment to share
to Art and Culture
You see relaxed and smiling
with your toddler, chatting,
faces. Somebody shows signs of
reading a book, or drawing
tiredness and would like to take a
something together.
nap, somebody else on the other hand
The show will start in a few moments.
would like to run to relax a bit after so much
The audience gets in. The room is big and
concentration. A few more moments before going
the spectators sit down on the floor or in the stands,
back to the outside world, and then the return trip to home
paying attention not to prevent others from seeing the
starts. The experience of theatre already belongs to the
stage. Cell phones turned off, and a low buzz to describe
past. A shared past where you entered a perfect, collective,
what is going on in front of them, on stage: nothing. “Just”
time machine, made of understanding between the artists
three people that observe from a corner the audience comand the audience. A trip to theatre in order to be taken
ing in. Who are they?
elsewhere.
With no prior warning, the silence comes in, and - together
To let yourself get carried away. Spectators, active contemwith it - the action of the three dancers. They start to walk.
plators, open, participating, involved.
Each of them has a direction and, at one time, they come
closer to the audience. Their bodies move and create im-
Children
have the right
to share the pleasure
of the artistic experience
with their families.
(translation by Anna Cocchi)
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SERVANT OF
THREE MASTERS
Translating for the very small ones
by Brigitte Korn-Wimmer
Translator, playwright and publisher (Monaco, Germany)
I was a dramaturg at the SchauBurg, Munich in the 1980s and even as a student
W hen
(studying Theatre/ Italian Philology and German Literature) I wanted to translate
plays for young audiences. Only in 1992 however, shortly before founding my own agency
“Theaterstueckverlag” and starting to work as a theatre-editor, I completed my first translation: Marco Baliani „Rosa & Celeste“. Since then I have translated 26 plays, four non-fiction-texts and 19 shorter plays for very young audiences, the latter ones mainly written
by Roberto Frabetti. During these 20 plus years of working as a translator I may have
taken the liberty of translating more freely but one thing has never changed – the feeling that I am a Servant of three Masters.
My first master to whom I feel obliged is – of course – the Italian author of the original play. Therefore it is very helpful to know him as a person; his language usage,
his ingenuity, what he means without saying, what he allows me to read between
the lines, what his general understanding of theatre is, his particular aesthetic,
his humour and how to decipher it, the structure of his sentences and to feel the
rhythm and sound of his original linguistic musicality.
My second master is my native language. It requests naturalness of expression in the target language. German words and sentences must gain the ability
of becoming action on stage. Linguistically, grammatically and stylistically I
have to be able to sympathize with the sound of the original play in order
to hit its rhythm in a lively way and to find solutions for the unconventional, vivid style of the author. I have to use the richness of the German
language. We have a lot of compounded adjectives, such as “klitzeklein”
(very small) or “riesengroß” (very big). I have to use the correct tense in
my language (sometimes different compared to the original). I have to
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deal with spoken language. I have to hit the author’s intonation but
I have to find my own version, my own interpretation which will
work in my country.
Literary specialists always search for a deeper meaning, and try to
explain what the author means. This is not the job of the translator who must find a way of translating words that are often only
the surface of a text. The Translator must go with this ‘surface text‘
and then find their own way of revealing the ‘subtext‘ without explaining what the original author means in a one dimensional way.
Sometimes I have to commit to something whereas the original
play leaves something vacant. Not every language allows the same
unambiguities. The other language sharpens the eyesight for one’s
own language. I do not only try to bring the foreign closer to me, but
I also have to move towards the foreign.
My third master is the audience, and I am talking about the very
young ones. Plays for them require lots of gestures or should allow
them to understand the words as gestures. Words and sentences
have to be clear and simple as well as figurative and metaphorical. The translation has to find its way directly into the heart of the
small child. This does not mean the work should be over simplified
or unchallenging, but some words don‘t form part of their vocabulary. Often I have to create a new vocabulary or struggle to find
the appropriate word or sentence for the youngsters. Even though
I always have the ’little‘ audience in mind my aim is not to bore
the adults accompanying them. I have to move their language with
mine without washing ashore clichés into the spoken language. It is
not necessary to standardize, or to reduce the linguistic willingness
to make a decision or to block invention but it is necessary to find
an emotional entrance to their world as well.
Translating is not a generalised skill – each translator will have their
own voice. The author must rely upon the person (that is to say the
translator) who will hopefully make him an export hit or at least
bring a new Italian author to being perceived positively in Germany.
I would like to thank all my Italian authors for their confidence.
IF HISTORY CALLS…THE RIVER
PIAVE WHISPERS
by Bruno Frabetti
of La Baracca - Testoni Ragazzi.
Togheter with a group of young actors and actresses, he was involved in the show “Il Piave mormorava”
- a La Baracca 2015 production for young people of Secondary Schools
is like a stage that we face together.
H istory
The title of this piece suggests a motivation, should you, readers, decide to go into the same room with us.
We are men and women, between 20 and 30 years old, who would like to tell you a story. We weren’t there while
this story was actually happening, but without these historical facts we would not be here now.
It’s a story about human beings: some of them were older than you, others probably much younger than us,
and that allows us to tell this story, even if we are not the original protagonists.
In our childhood, we wondered about war, what it is.
And now here, you have an answer. For free.
As free as your choice is, that is, should that be to decide to follow us on this journey: side by side, to the
front line.
In which case, we have to ask you for an hour of your time, in silence: in front of us.
If you can bear our vision of this, with us, then you will see through our eyes.
It was of our own free choice that we decided to remember this story, heard on the banks of the river Piave.
“In the silence, the beat of the stories echoes, and, when it stops, it becomes a sound or a kind of noise….”.
Rivers listen and protect memories between waves, not just remembering words, but music and songs, steps
beaten out on the rocks or absorbed on sludge.
Every sound is collected in these muddy banks, with stories resounding about who we were and how we died.
Within these waters, the temporal continuity between human beings and their past love to play hide and seek.
Personally, I had the opportunity to visit these landscapes, today so very different from the past, and it was
then I decided to share their stories. It has been a hard challenge, one that I accepted to face, probably unconsciously so, given the courage and bravado that goes with my age.
So, let’s start from the beginning.
There are ten more people by my side, companions on my journey.
By working together you could feel, in each and every moment, a natural propensity in helping each other.
A kind of pure trust, built up during years of workshops, that is there without needing to think about it.
I will never forget the first day of work, as I can’t forget this feeling of shared attitude that brought us together from the
very beginning.
14
I was still convinced that we had to transform ourselves into a military platoon at that time.
I hadn’t ever thought that being ourselves could be enough.
“Spring time in 1914, was so beautiful that I could have been dancing all day long… I was just feeling my twenties beneath my skin…”.
But I was wrong: the main characters of this story were human beings and not one of them was expecting anything such as this to
happen during their lifetime.
Workshop after workshop, the show was becoming almost ready.
In such a short time, it was amazing to see how the storyline was transforming onto the stage, composing the show.
Then we realized that, in editing the different parts of the show, the rhetorical way of acting was disappearing, leaving the stage as
an empty space. Apart from us. Just us and our voices, our faces and four bodies.
Bodies to shoot from one side of the stage to the other, which, crashing in on each other, were reverberating the sound of the filed
guns.
Our voice, now, has to be louder than the sound of silence, hidden between the noise of explosions.
Because just then, if you close your eyes, it would look like this happening for real.
That’s the trick in how to engage the audience.
The people watching us will not have to pretend to be soldiers, but rather be witnesses of something that is going on.
Indeed, even if fortunately we are not living in time of war, this show doesn’t want to be just a celebration of something passed or
that won’t come back again.
The past has to come back in our eyes, onto our bodies.
These are the only tools we have to create accurate pictures, which are going to be our prime criteria to create an emotional filter,
able to select those feelings we are having on the stage.
Although our aim is to be matchmakers for the audience, not filters.
The truth is, we’re all part of it now.
Each scene takes on this kind of foolish intensity, even if no one inside the room could even for a moment get what it means to stay
in the middle of a war field…
In this way, many times, we have really dragged the emotions of the audience onwards towards our pursuit, or so they have told us;
those, of course, being the ones who accepted our invitation.
Other times we failed, but even this kind of feedback can be a tool for change.
Because being convincing is not enough; it is just remotely comparable to being there, within the story; inside it, as we have to be
each time.
And so here we are, in front of the theatre, close to the stage, again.
Now, if you are interested in listening to my voice for a little longer, come with me: and…shhhhh…listen.
The years go by, and already more than a hundred have passed since the beginning of this story.
The rivers flow by with them, as quiet witnesses, whispering their memories.
Only the man who can listen to them deserves to be the narrator of their stories.
A way to express a conscientious objection to the events of the past as they are written in history books; as if they are fading away
or far from our everyday life, even if they are marked as unforgettable.
If you are to contemplate this story, it begins by coming in through the same door all together, both audience and narrators.
The lights go down, and this is the call for all people actually knowing how to listen to it: those who would join this war, in which we
are already fighting in order to not forget, those who have to embrace memory’s weapons , the stories.
(translation by Bruno Frabetti)
15
THE GLOBETROTTING ACTOR
by Bruno Cappagli
Actor, playwright, director and Artistic Director at La Baracca - Testoni Ragazzi
p.m., Istanbul Atatürk Airport.
1: 00I woke
up early this morning and I was still half asleep when I got on a small bus to Istanbul Airport, together with
the Dutch company De Stilte and the Mexican company Teatro Al Vacío. We have just taken part in a festival of theatre for
young audiences. In Turkish, theatre for the little “cucuk”. I presented the show “Cucuk fil” (The Little Elephant), a show that
I have performed for twenty years and is in my DNA. The little elephant and I have travelled a lot; we have met children of
all colours and cultures, and we can say that, together, we have changed, as actually happens to the little elephant during the
story we tell. The story is about a little elephant with a tiny nose who, because of and thanks to his curiosity, one day meets
a crocodile who bites his nose so hard that it becomes long. Rudyard Kipling believed that this is the reason why elephants
have trunks.
I have also changed. I have worked at La Baracca for thirty years, and thanks to this amazing job of mine I have been lucky
enough to travel the world doing what I love: theatre for children,
But what happens to a globetrotting actor for children? Of course, he meets many children. For example, here in Turkey I have
met eyes of children who didn’t understand my language, and that has been a problem. No Turkish words? No understand!
And how do you tell a story if your audience don’t understand? After so many travels, perhaps I have found a way. You have to
open your eyes and heart just a little wider, and you have to look for the mysterious language that is hidden in the willingness
to meet the other. Your body is eager to learn new movements and to step on unexplored paths. You take a chance, risk and
play. But beware, for it’s a serious game; a game of precision and daring. Unfortunately, I’m not a theatre genius, so before
finding the right solution, sometimes I make mistakes, and it takes a few attempts to attain the goal any actor on stage sets
themselves: to reach their audience. On the other hand, I absolutely trust my special audience of children. Children are
“difficult” spectators because they hate to wait: they want your heart straight away but at the same time, when they realise
you are there for them, they can be so generous, suddenly and completely. Then, a smile is enough, and the game is now
easier, paths become motorways and we can travel nice and fast, together, until we reach our destination.
So, this is what happened in Bursa, Turkey, yesterday and the day before yesterday. Next week, I will be in Madrid, and I
know I’m going to feel at home. Madrid and La Baracca have been close for long. We have friends there, and the children are
genuine and noisy, as I like them to be. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like Nordic children, who are usually very silent and
concentrated. All children are beautiful. Simply, the children who jump in their seats or laugh out loud while experiencing
theatre are just so much fun, and they start a little engine in my soul that produces adrenaline, which makes me a little
crazier and a little closer to the fantastic world of my tales.
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I could go on for hours writing about happens during my shows, but Roberto and Francesca (R. Frabetti and F. Nerattini, the
editors of Icaro) actually asked me to write about my life as a touring actor, so I’ll go back to the main topic and to Chiapas,
Mexico, about ten years ago. I am lying in the back of a truck, hiding under jute sacks not to be seen by the soldiers, because
if they find me, they could stop me from reaching areas of the jungle ruled by guerrilla organisations. So here I am, on a very
special mission, armed with a tale for children. It makes me laugh, but at the same time it makes me remember the value
theatre and stories have in our life, and how beautiful it is to walk on a path in the jungle like a guerrilla soldier fighting for
the freedom of imagination and stories. I arrive at a small village. The children in Chiapas have the physical traits typical of
the Maya. They have big, dark eyes, bright smiles and are always barefoot. They are curious and they touch the hair on my
arms and my beard as if I were a Spanish conquistador. Initially, I feel a little awkward, but after a while, all these hands make
me feel welcomed and when I start to sing the elephant’s song, our contact has already been established. They trust me, so I
can start telling the story of the little elephant, but... something unexpected happens. What’s an elephant?
Oops!!! What??? You don’t know what an elephant is?
We’ve never seen one!!
Here, there are no books, pictures, internet, TV, electricity... nothing. There’s coffee, mud, trees, snakes, soldiers, beans, but
no elephants. So the show changes, and we start to describe and draw the animal world. It takes a full day, and then, finally,
I can tell the elephant’s story. But the most surprising thing is that here, in this village, they don’t even know what theatre is.
But I don’t need to explain it to them, because theatre is a necessary part of human beings, a suspended, magical place that
lifts you up from the ground and makes you live in an imaginary and, at the same time, real dimension, allowing you to travel
in time, space and things.
Finally, as a good old globetrotting actor, I will take you to Italy, my country. For many years now, every weekend - but also
on weekdays - we have been travelling across the Boot and to the islands, and we have met a lot of kids. Every town, every
region has its own world, its own karma, its own identity. And we cannot deny the fact that the children in Naples or Palermo
are spectators who love theatre almost as professionals do, that Sardinian children are silent at first and then they literally
explode, that the ones from Veneto and Friuli study and analyse you, that those from Apulia are so noisily fun, that the ones
from Milan are particularly hard to please, that the children from Bergamo and those from Romagna make me laugh, that the
ones from Marche are generous, that those from Ferrara make me laugh like the ones from Bergamo, that those from Tuscany
are eager to laugh, that those from Aosta really love us, that those from Liguria and Piedmont are so faraway but so close, that
the ones from Rome are many but different, that the children from Umbria are the most Italian of all, and that in Calabria,
Basilicata and Molise you need to drive through so many twists and turns before finding their beautiful, lively eyes. Then,
there are the children from Emilia and from Bologna. You think you know them so well, but they always change, as, after all,
everything changes. What, however, doesn’t change is this wonderful journey through the eyes and the joy of children, from
whichever part of the world they are from.
Being a globetrotting actor is a beautiful, hard job, that you can only learn by taking trains, planes, ferries, by driving cars and
wearing good shoes. But most of all, what you need is a story to tell, and then another, and another... trip after trip... eyes and
more eyes... without being afraid to make mistakes but doing your best to be there for the encounter.
(translation by Letizia Olivieri)
17
TELLING FAIRY TALES
by Anna Paola Corradi
Cultural Association Tapirulan (Bologna)
Friend and Member of La Baracca - Testoni Ragazzi
between Tapirulan and La Baracca dates back to a long time ago. It started “at the time of the SanleonT heardo”,partnership
the stage where La Baracca gave birth to the first Theatre Centre for young audiences in Italy at the beginning of
the ‘80s, thanks to an agreement with the municipality of Bologna. It went on at Teatro Testoni Ragazzi, where our cultural
association has its headquarters. Which affinities have tied us, coming to the world of education, to them, belonging to the
world of theatre, for thirty years?
I could say that it is “something” made of passion and ongoing research for new possible encounters among children, adults,
stories, theatre and school. It is experimenting, telling, creating for children: by communicating with children and young
people, you find a deep meaning to your life. It is being curious and listening to what children and young people have to communicate. Being on their side. Valuing the privilege of their look, their trust, their admiration. Stating their right to quality
contents and forms of expression.
During these years, we have realized various projects dedicated to fairy tale, including several editions of “Appuntamento
con la fiaba” (“A date with fairy tale”), the series “L’ora delle fate” (“Fairies Time”), the artistic mini-routes “Una casina piccina
picciò” (“A Teeny House”) and “Soffiami fata! Nel giardino delle storie sperdute...” (“Blow me, my fairy, into the garden of lost stories”). They are forms of theatrical narration of traditional fairy tales and of fairy tales by known authors addressed to three
to six/seven year-old children. They manage to capture the curiosity and attention of audiences of all ages, thanks to the
proximity that is created between the audience and the narrators. Tapirulan and La Baracca – Testoni Ragazzi jointly choose
to offer to family and school audiences a safe narrative environment, ensuring the possibility of a more absorbed listening.
But why is it important to tell children fairy tales today? Why to tell them since an early age? A first answer is that we deem it
important to save them from oblivion, since they are ancient stories that tell about universal human events; to pass on tales
that come from our ancestors and are still able to give us feelings and deep emotional experiences.
Fairy tales are valuable stories, because they talk about the adventure of growing up in the form of a metaphor; they talk
about challenges to embrace, obstacles to overcome, dangers to face, destinies to change, attempts to solve difficult life situations, risks to take to seek your fortune…
If these events are told skilfully, the listener can live them personally, identifying with the characters, with nothing happening
for real...
We deeply enjoy narrating, for the pleasure of creating and living, with children and adult audiences, those moments of
make-believe, of fictional “Once Upon a Time”: a genuine and intense experience of proximity, of alliance, of communication
of truths that are often secret, untold.
The experience of these years has made us understand that even very young children can get close to fairy tales narration.
They can pay attention for half an hour - forty minutes or more, if the fairy tales are chosen – with regard to subject and
plot complexity - taking into account the age of the audience, and if they are told in an accessible, light, and playful way, but
serious and true at the same time.
Our challenge is to tell fairy tales with narrations that are respectful of the full-length versions by known authors or of the
original transcriptions; we compare, where possible, the different versions of a same fairy tale. To tell them, we like to use
special selected words, images, gestures and actions that are not ordinary; we find literature and movie references in our
imagination, we rake up childhood memories, daydreams; we recall real and imaginary visual experiences…
We are narrators who love to tell fairy tales, playing characters that communicate a frame story theatrically; this story contains the narration of the fairy plot.
What do contemporary children know about classic fairy tales? What image do they have of wolves, maidens lost in the
woods, fairies, witches, princes, princesses, and knights? Since very young, they meet characters and plots not always faithful to the original versions, they watch cartoons, animation movies, feature films on TV and at the cinema, they leaf through
illustrated books.
We like to think that, in addition to the fairy tales that they already know, they might discover new ones at theatre. We hope
that images and words will settle in children’s memory and become their heritage. Perhaps children will recall, transform
and use them to tell and represent new narrations and, maybe, continue to pass on ancient tales.
We work in this direction, without certainty, but with good hopes…
(translation by Anna Cocchi)
18
A BOAT
by Enrico Montalbani
To our
supporting members
and Icaro readers
This magazine is written by La Baracca - Testoni
Ragazzi supporting members and friends, and it is
therefore open to those who have proposals and
reflections to share. So we invite you to get in touch with us if you are willing to write an article for
subsequent issues. The editorial staff will select the
most interesting proposals, hoping that all of you
may share our work. In the meantime please send
us your suggestions, critiques, ideas and all that may
help Icaro fly.
[email protected]
We chose write a magazine available for free to all
of you who would like to read it. We do not lack enthusiasm or ideas: we would like to translate every
single issue and we are also thinking of creating an
online version.
Anyone who is willing or has the opportunity to
help us make this dream come true can support the
magazine with a donation. Even a small gesture can
help make our project grow bigger.
(to get information on donations please visit our
website or contact us)
Icaro is ONLINE with the old numbers!!!
icaro.testoniragazzi.it
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Teatro Testoni Ragazzi | via Matteotti 16, 40129 Bologna | [email protected]