Performance-based Projects for Schools (2011-2015)

Dance- and theatre-based collective performances and video works, student exhibitions and festivals, public events and performative interventions

As a teaching artist and educator of disadvantaged students in middle and secondary public schools (2011-2015), I have co-developed and co-conducted with several other teachers and artists a series of anti-dropout projects and projects for students orientation, citizenship and emotional literacy based on corporeal and relational expression through dance, theatre and singing. My practice as choreographer, dramaturg, video-maker and artistic director was based on the conviction that performance has a transformative power. These creative processed and outcomes ranged from dance-theatre performances to video-works to students exhibitions to public participatory events and interventions and festivals.

I can proudly say that in these five years of intense work as artistic director I have managed to bring several hundred students on stage: first the children of the elementary schools, then the boys and girls of the middle school, and finally the adolescents of high schools. I discovered that it is the latter are those who need the moment and space of public performance the most. They need public performance as a gateway to believe in themselves and feel part of a bigger project. I can also say that I have involved dozens of teachers and thousands of spectators in this process, including other students and teachers and their families, and other local actors such as entrepreneurs, political representatives and associations. Walking through the streets of my small town I feel proudly a point of reference for a community of young people who know me, greet me and thank me for the beautiful experiences lived together through dance, singing, acting and audio-visual storytelling . During a series of creative and original educational projects - original because they were developed on the basis of their effective needs and passions - the students had the opportunity to experience school in an experiential, participatory and emotional way. This was a key for acquiring greater motivation, developing self-esteem and living enthusiastically the experience of working with their peers in pursuit of a common goal. I have worked with kids of different ages, different educational and socio-economic backgrounds, different inclinations and different mother tongues. What unites them all is a desire to be together and to be accepted for who they are. My work has gone well beyond the formal boundaries of theatrical and dance expressiveness. I have worked first and foremost as a coach and facilitator. The thing that impressed me the most is being thanked for having helped the youths to create a real "family", to the point of being called their "second father" - a compliment that goes well beyond my expectations but also makes me feel a huge responsibility.

Teenage cry

2015

Dance-Rap Flashmob

In a hopeless world where the youths look to social networks and Youtube stars in search of identity and recognition, this is a wake up call for adults to stop telling lies and for adolescents to embrace creativity as the real rebellion of doing something meaningful and unique, together.

STRONG WITHOUT DRUGS

2014

Musical Theatre Performance

Strong without Drugs is the story of a teenager faced with her fears and hopes, and unwittingly falling into the tunnel of drugs in the name of unrequited love. The musical begins with the dramatic scene of drug overdose coma in which the protagonist lies between life and death; then her “fall” is traced back as a flow of vivid flashbacks: from the choice to smoke the first joint with her group of peers, to consuming cocaine with her lover in search of deeper emotions, right into addiction to heroin and the devastating effects of abstinence. The turning point of the story occurs first inside the two protagonists’ heart and mind: confronted with their desperate solitude and made powerless by the effect of drugs, they surrender their masks in a touching moment of compassion to embrace their tragic destiny together. This choice opens up the way to the climax in which romantic love comes together with a more constructive form of friendship: the crew stops being a mechanism of parasitic and debilitating social dependence to become a real family, a source of trust and motivation. At this point the Musical turns from past to present time to assert a fundamental message: it is possible to be strong without drugs by living life fully. Creativity and, in particular, corporeal expression is foregrounded as an antidote to drugs rather than its byproduct: because it helps adolescents unite without the need to put on a mask and express their unique individual potential in the pursuit of a common aim.

MIGRANTS

2013

Theatre and Dance Performance

We used to migrate with a cardboard suitcase to escape hunger. Today we are leaving because there is no future for young people here. Let's not talk about a disgrace, let's talk about shame. I leave. But what of those who stay? Texts adapted from "The Tempest” (Shakespeare), "Sull’Oceano" (Edmondo De Amicis), "Passa Parole” (blog on the life of clandestine immigrants in Milan) and "Vivo Altrove; Giovani e Senza Radici, gli Emigranti Italiani di Oggi” (Claudia Cucchiarato).