"The gift of diversity", Intercultural Theatre Storytelling Festival II Edition - 2008

The Intercultural Theatre Storytelling Laboratory
Presents
"The gift of diversity" - Intercultural Theatre Storytelling Festival
II Edition - Rome, May 8-24 2008

The idea:
Interculture means confront, exchange and communication among diverse cultures, towards an opened view and a larger dialogue between differences, against each discrimination. However, somehow, privileging interest to origins and traditions of the person that we meet - even if he is rich and amazing - and that normally we call a stranger, we may risk to forget his true particularity, maybe the most important thing: his story and not his country's one, his experience and not his people's one, his emotions and feelings, not his race's one. So, we can make the mistake to build a weak and false image, a masquerade, where people are just playing roles: the African, the Chinese, the Arabian and so on. Words are important and, when concepts linked to them have a fundamental value in our life, contradictions are not possible. We are different or equal? We can't be both, this is our provocation. If you think we are all unique, then, maybe, you could agree with the idea behind this project: the most powerful, significant and revolutionary way to have an intercultural point of view, in other words, to underline the importance of differences and richness inside our individuality, is to show the diversity of people that often think themselves as equal (not celebrating the equality of strangers...), to tell how much they are interesting to listen when they are speaking of themselves and how all become wonderful if they are so proud to mix each others.

II Edition:
In May 2008 we’ll present the second edition of this festival. The last year, the first one was thought to put the bases and this time we whish to show our idea of interculture. Local or foreign artists, considering their diversity as a gift, will tell their story with their personal language or dialect. Because Italy and all countries in the world are wonderfully multicultural places even without immigrants, which are just other colours to improve the rainbow…
Almost seventy artists and companies, since North to South, sent us their proposals, convincing us that our point of view is not so crazy. After a hard selection will present nine shows from all Italy. The aim is to create a space where, thanks to Theatre Storytelling, interculture will become just culture, while actors and public will agree that diversity is the first value to celebrate.

The shows are, in order of appearance:

- May 8, 9.00 p.m.: “Scantu[1]”, by and with Adele Tirante, “Cosa sono le nuvole” and “Viaggio inverso”
- May 9, 9.00 p.m.: "Francesco Pileggi, the true story of a man of honour[2]", by and with Andrea Chianelli
- May 10, 9.00 p.m.: “Calafrica[3]”, by and with Manuela Valenti
- May 15, 9.00 p.m.: “Refugees”, by and with “Rataplab”
- May 16, 9.00 p.m.: “Zagara[4]”, by and with Maria Cristina Sarò
- May 17, 9.00 p.m.: “It’s spring”, by and with Antonio Carletti
- May 22, 9.00 p.m.: “Horrible heritage on the lake[5]”, by and with “The differents, almost equal but different”
- May 23, 9.00 p.m.: “The town of Punt”, by and with Elisa Menchicchi
- May 24, 9.00 p.m. : “The true story of Jean Baptiste du Val-de-Grâce, orator of the human race”, by and with Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher and Cecilia Moreschi

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[1] Trad. (Sicilian): Fear
[2, 3] Performance in Italian and Calabrian dialect
[4] Zagara is a flower and the word comes from Arabic language. It means "to shine a white iridescent light"
[5] Totally improvised collective storytelling in Rome and Naples dialects

The festival will be at the Studio Uno Theatre, in Rome, Via Carlo della Rocca, 6.

The Laboratory:
The Intercultural theatre storytelling laboratory is directed by Alessandro Ghebreigziabiher, with the precious collaboration of Cecilia Moreschi.

Intercultural Theatre Storytelling Laboratory
Via Modica 4 - Int. 7 - Rome (Italy)
Web: www.narrazioneinterculturale.org - www.alessandroghebreigziabiher.it
Press: Luisa Moreschi - lab_interculturale@tiscali.it

Intercultural Theatre Storytelling Laboratory:
A travel to recover our fundamental diversity, with the personal storytelling and the listening of the others ones. In this way the culture expression, inside the inter-culture word, comes up from individual experience and talking and moving customs, personal memories and feelings, more than from race and origin, family and traditions. Theatre training and social animation, in the last twenty years, have become very popular, in schools, cultural associations and therapeutic communities. Today they are a special instrument in education programs and health care organizations. Acting and role playing have their rules and many of them are the same: trying to reach a good relation with our body and with others, recognizing the importance of imagination, whishing to make our relationship better, and so on. However they are also rules for life itself, to feel fine inside and together with other people. Besides, the laboratory is experiential, with exercises, games, improvisation’s methods and meetings about work. In the course the concept of being a group is very significant, indispensable base on which we can build our role. The idea is to create a periodic appointment inside an yearly travel. A moment inside normal life, during personal stories. The aim is to build a common time that follows the participants on their road, growing up with them. Thanks to the constructing of trust and collaboration, the chance is to let the group to express and share his message and the personal contribute, essential part of the final mosaic.

This release was published on openPR.