OCA: L’arte che allena il pensiero

We are constantly inundated with news about the climate crisis, from newspapers and TV to social media. This constant stream of complex data and information about an imminent catastrophe leaves us feeling helpless and anxious. Paradoxically, this narrative can lead to inaction.
The challenge of CABARET ARTICO – Giochiamoci il Clima (ARTIC CABARET – Let’s play with the Climate), born within the European Green Ethics project, is to talk about the climate crisis through theatre with realism and hope. Starting from the scientific data that unequivocally document how the current climate change is caused by human action, it also narrates the possibilities of a fair and sustainable future still within reach.
As the performance highlights, our future doesn’t hinge on individual lifestyle changes alone. It requires a collective commitment, involving citizens, local and global politics. As Gaber said, “Freedom is participation”, and climate change demands a shared, political, and collective response right now. It’s not a problem for future generations, but for all of us today.

Florence is 200 years old, Teresa is in her thirties and she lives the nursing profession with vocation, grit and determination, and also with irony and a lot of heart. Florence felt a calling in her time, a vocation for care that makes her give up having her own family and forces her to stand strong against her family of origin and society, choosing the practice of caring for the sick not as charity or secondary service but as a full profession of a competent and free woman.

Myth and reality meet on stage in an unusual directorial choice: Florence is a character, played by a professional actress, while Teresa plays herself, an actress on stage who is an actual nurse in real life. She embodies the voice of today and of youth, of those who, in the midst of the Covid crisis, passionately uphold the values that Florence established as the foundation of every act of care. Today, Florence Nightingale remains an inspiration for every young person who chooses to pursue a career in nursing, a guiding myth, an exemplary figure on many levels: care, profession, and gender identity.

Two lives upon the stage, two eras in conversation. Past and present chase one another, telling tales of care and its deep knowledge, of womanhood and its indelible mark, and the constant struggle to preserve its essence. Giving voice to those who daily battle for the health of all.

Math Scare Boom is a performance-conference born within the Erasmus+ TIM – Theatre in Mathematics project, in which SCT Centre | TPE partnered with three European entities: University of Bergen (NO), the Polytechnic of Crete (GR), and the Asta theatre company (PT) to address the issue of math anxiety with primary and lower secondary school students. The dramaturgy, following the methodology of Social and Community Theatre, stems from interviews with young students from Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Greek schools. Their answers became a stimulus for the creative work of performers from the various countries involved in the project, who brought their experience with mathematics at school and in life to the process.

The protagonist of the performance is Viola, an adult who, like many, has known the fear of mathematics since she was a child, and has never abandoned it. Due to a strange misunderstanding, however, Viola, who is a physical education teacher, finds herself in the shoes of a mathematics teacher: the school principal herself imposes this role on her, communicating the decision through a loudspeaker. This circumstance leads her to recover distant memories: a classmate who was very good at mathematics, a letter to Mrs. Mathematics, exams on the multiplication tables in which there is always a number that never arrives… The memory of Ada, a sporty and fun aunt who was an unusual mathematics teacher for her, together with the guiding voice of the principal and the help of the audience, will finally allow Viola to discover that, to understand numbers and geometry, it is important to playfully explore the world from new perspectives: looking for mathematics in the real world, from the forms of a football pitch to the spiral of a seashell.

OnStage+ is a Social Community Theatre Centre (SCT Centre) – Teatro Popolare Europeo production, and stems from the OnStage (nON Stare a GuardarE) project developed in collaboration with Unito Departments of Psychology, Humanities, Law, Historical Studies, Political Culture and Society and Informatics, Cirsde, General Management and CUG – Single Guarantee Committee.

It’s an artistic and educational project, presented as an interactive performance using Social and Community Theater methodology, focusing on gender equality, a range of positive masculine role models, and combating LGBTQIA+ discrimination.

The performance, developed from research, interviews, and workshops with residents and students, actively engages the audience through performative languages and various techniques designed to ignite reflection on discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The performance was created as part of the MatemACT – Playing with mathematics project, winner of the MIUR 2021 call for proposals (now MUR and MI) for projects promoting scientific culture. It is produced by SCT Centre in collaboration with Teatro Popolare Europeo for the show’s production and Il Mutamento for the distribution of the project’s performances.

“Breaking down gender stereotypes is not only beneficial for each of us, it is vital for the future”

– Roya Mahboob, 25 years old, Afghan IT expert and influencer.

Contaci! addresses the issue of gender discrimination in the field of sciences and, at the same time, invites us to discover them. In her journey to the roots of her own fear, Viola, the only actress on stage, rediscovers the inventions of brilliant women, the curiosity for mathematical play, and the beauty of a subject that should belong to everyone. The show uses the languages of narrative and physical theatre. The dramaturgy was created by interviewing women of science and gathering materials from students.

The performance:

• Encourages young students to have confidence in themselves;
• Provides tools for reflecting on gender discrimination;
• Illustrates the biographies of great women of science of the 20th century.

The performance, combined with the subsequent health education lesson/meeting, offers information and emotions that together create a unique and special training opportunity to understand and recognize the signs of distress in young people, whether they are in middle or high school.

Theatre has always been an artistic space where even society’s darkest and deepest issues can be brought to life. At one point in the performance, it is stated that the suicide or attempted suicide of a young person is an “unspeakable thing.” While this is true, the circumstancesleading to such profound distress, suffering and hopelessness can and should be explored.

#SPES takes on this challenge by drawing on the stories, musical suggestions, and gestures gathered during extensive theatre workshops conducted with adolescents hospitalized in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry ward of Regina Margherita Hospital, as well as with mental health professionals, pediatricians, nurses, educators, and middle and high school teachers. These three groups of people have consciously shared their experiences with mental illness and suicide through social and community theatre to contribute to the creation of this performance.

With a few exceptions, the words in the play are spoken by adults. That’s because teenagers usually don’t speak, not until they’re in the hospital, during their long and difficult therapeutic recovery paths. But this generation of teenagers, just like all the other generations, has songs and music. The play features a unique dramaturgy of music videos and spoken word, where the lyrics of the songs carry as much weight as the dialogue. The often striking or cold imagery in the videos was suggested by teenagers themselves to convey their experiences of distress.