ITEN

What can authorialun teatro d’autore?

The answerof puppets and objects

1979 Alessandro Libertini founds the Piccoli Principi

1981 Debut of the show Pulcinella ed Euridice

1982 Chiara Fantini joins the Company First prize at the International Festival Arrivano dal mare in Cervia with Pulcinella ed Euridice

 Participation in the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes di Charleville-Mézières 

1983 Debut of the show Così mi piace

1984 Stregagatto Award for Così mi piace. Debut of the show Deviazioni dalla Norma

1985 Participation in the International Festival of Theatre for Young Audiences in Montreal Debut of the show Narciso amico mio 

The codes, automatics, and mannerisms of institutional theater left us perplexed. The stage interested us because it could unite arts, reformulate languages, and connect disruptively with people.

What could Pulcinella have achieved if he had been a puppet and the author was his puppeteer? This was the prelude to our poetics, which began with an incursion into puppet theater and never quite concluded.

We liked the puppets because they asked questions. First, we made them; then, they spoke to us, like Pinocchio, suggesting characters, roles, and interpretations. And about them, they asked our opinion, personal, unique, and authorial.

We then did the same with objects. Consumer society was delivering them lifeless, but to us, they seemed alive. In them, we found all the suggestions we sought to deviate from the norm and reflect on theater in our way.

The author's bodyand the wisdom of the child

1986 Véronique Nah joins the Company Debut of the show Kinderszenen at Teatro alla Scala of Milan

1987 Narciso amico mio alla Biennale du Théâtre Jeunes Publics in Lyon Narciso amico mio at the Youth Theater Festival of Helsinki

1988 Debut of the show Una cosa per un’altra

1989 Debut of the show Dodici

1992 Dodici restaged in Belgium with Belgian actors

1994 Debut of the show A partire da Miles

1995 Una cosa per un’altra restaged by the Blauw Vier company in Antwerp A partire da Miles finalist at the Stregagatto Award 95/96

1996 ETI/Camera d’Oro Award for the video Oltre i Cavalli del Partenone

1997 A partire da Miles performed at La Cité de la Musique in Paris A partire da Miles A Partire da Miles performed at the Europa Jazz Festival in Le Mans

2000 Debut of the show La magia delle immagini at Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain di Saint-Étienne

2001 Direction of the show De tooverfluit con la compagnia Het muziek Lod di Gent

2002 Prix des Régionales Award at the Festival International Momix with La magia delle immagini

2004 Workshop at the Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain in Strasbourg Workshop at Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame Debut of the show Il risveglio di Sirenetta at Madrid

2006 La magia delle immagini at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris Debut of the show Celeste all’Osservatorio Astrofisico di Firenze Debut of the show Con gli occhi di Pinocchio at Festivaletteratura di Mantova

It then became difficult to understand whether we were manipulating the objects or the objects manipulating us. Indeed, it was they who brought our bodies onto the stage. We were not fond of showing ourselves, but they said, “Why? You are like us.” So, we did not step onto the stage as actors but as objects among objects.

Provocative and seductive, for contemplation and reflection, our author’s body revealed itself to us and the eyes of the audience. Puppet body, furniture body. Placed body, exposed body. Body as ground for inscription, body as reason for inspiration.

Fundamental in those years was the relationship with childhood, not only in children’s theater. For us, the child was not just an audience member but also a travel companion to reflect on theater.

Their perplexities, their insights, and their thousand skills nourished our poetics. From them, we conceived our works; to them, we returned to receive their refined and stern judgment. In any case, the author they returned to us was bare.

We owe infinite aesthetic choices to the child’s wisdom: from the abolition of “the theater’s fourth wall” to anti-intellectualism, from attention to form to a dramaturgy always between fiction and reality.

Theaterbeyond theater

2007 Debut of the performance BaBa BaBa at the Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art

2008 Obraztsov in Bochum, Moscow, Saint Petersburg

2009 BaBa  in Romania Con gli occhi di Pinocchio at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

2010 BaBa  at MADRE in Naples; BaBa  in Finland, Germany, Canada, and Portugal

2011 BaBa , at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Rivoli; Madrid; Vienna

2012 BaBa in Hasselt, Belgium

 Io, diversa, at the Festival Météores in Brussels Visita in forma di spettacolo at the Centre Luigi Pecci in Prato Visita in forma di spettacolo at the Museo Stibbert in Florence Visita in forma di spettacolo at the Museo Marino Marini in Florence

 Visita in forma di spettacolo at the SMS Santa Maria della Scala in Siena Visita in forma spettacolo at the Museo Archeologico Artimino

2013 Debut of the show Umami in Marseille, European Capital of Culture 2013

2014 Collaboration with the Accademia della Crusca for the Festival Dante 2021

2015 Ritagli at the International Festival in Brussels  Ritagli at the Festivaletteratura in Mantova

2016 Visita in forma di spettacolo at the De Chirico a Ferrara exhibition

2017 Creation of the show Scientifico! Ritagli at the Biennale Internationale des Arts de la Marionnette in Paris Ritagli at the International Bim Bam Festival in Salzburg

2018 Ritagli in Jaipur and Kolkata Ritagli at the WeeFestival in Turin

2019 Visita in forma di spettacolo at the Museo Casa Siviero in Florence Debut of the show Calderone immaginario at Le Pôle in Le Revest-les-Eaux, in collaboration with the Musée d’Art de Toulon

2023 The Institute for Puppetry Arts and Popular Theatre in Grugliasco hosts Figuriamoci!

The economic crisis of 2007 was also the crisis of our theater: shorter tours, smaller productions, and reduced opportunities for expression. We no longer had the space we once did. And so, space became our problem: what could the author do outside of the theater?
They could listen to other spaces, as they had listened to puppets, objects, and children.

Thus began our para-theatrical forays into non-theatrical spaces: museums, monuments, homes, and cities. In these places, however, we did not bring our dramaturgy. On the contrary, the places brought theirs, helping us to rethink our condition as authors.

This is how we discovered ourselves as visitors. As such, we loved to present ourselves to our audience. We were visitors among visitors who, together with them, observed, showed, discovered and questioned, offering many points of view.

Our theater had always been militant, but the years of this “theater beyond theater” showed its necessity more than ever. We did not want to stop, nor were we interested in resisting, because the insatiable curiosity of our audience, which never ceased to surprise us, suggested one thing only: to insist.

And so we insisted.