Natura Dèi Teatri 2006

XI edition

artistic direction Maria Federica Maestri e Francesco Pititto

                5th _15th of October 2006

C O S T A N T  W O R K S

The 2006 edition of the NATURA DÈI TEATRI Festival founds its programme on constancy in contemporary artistic research. Focusing even more on the dramaturgic and scenic project, Natura Dèi Teatri is in contact with artists and companies of absolute international prominence. The eleventh edition of the Festival, directed by Maria Federica Maestri and Francesco Pititto, starting from October 5th until October 15th, will present the audience events of theatre and dance, performances, installations and musical interventions inspired by the theme of the representation, CONSTANT WORKS: it is the first of a trilogy which will continue in 2007 and 2008 with TROUBLED WORKS and PATIENT WORKS. The value, the fruition and research of a new public functionality of historical and environmental monuments of the Parma province remains one of the guidelines of the Festival: the charming fascination of the venues are of extreme beauty and relevant historical value: Lenz Teatro (Parma), Corte di Giarola (Collecchio), Duomo of Fidenza, la Chiesa di San Genesio (San Secondo). The  eagerly-awaited event is organised with the support of the Emilia Romagna Region, the Province of Parma, the Municipality of Parma, the Municipality of Collecchio, the Foundation Monte di Parma, the University of Parma, Fondazione Nuovi Mecenati (Foundation of New Patrons of the arts), the local Health Authority for Mental Health, the Associazione Pedemontana Parmense (the Parma Pedemont Association), the  Colser Domus Parma Group, the Municipalities of Fornovo Taro, Fidenza, San Secondo, San Polo di Torrile, Fontanellato, Colorno, Sala Baganza, Soragna; Consorzio Parco Regionale Fluviale del Taro (Taro River Regional Park Consortium), Consorzio Parco Regionale dei Boschi di Carrega (Carrega Woods Regional Park Consortium) and in collaboration with Pievi in Scena, organised by the Provincia di Parma.
The Festival is the first non-founding member of Iris, South European Association for Contemporary Creation, founded in Avignon in July 2004 which comprises sixty theatres and prominent international festivals in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Natura Dèi Teatri will open with “Leonce und Lena”, from Georg Büchner, resulting from the special laboratory organised by Lenz Rifrazioni, in cooperation with the Department for Mental Health of the Parma local Health Authority: a multi-annual project which will bring on stage, together with the troupe, some former psychic long-term patients of the Colorno Mental Asylum. In European premiere, the artistic company, celebrating their twentieth anniversary from foundation, will propose a whole day of performances: the Trilogy devoted to Calderón de la Barca, (to be presented in Spain in March 2007), with the works “La vida es sueño” (Life is a Dream), “El mágico prodigioso” (The Mighty Magician)  and “El príncipe constante” (The Constant Prince). 
Furthermore, the company will present its new creative work from Jean Genet, “High Surveillance”. “Only ostensibly far, Calderòn and Genet guide us in the obscurity of appearance, in the maze of dreams, in the fog of illusions which clash against the reality of God-Man’s death”. Again by Lenz Rifrazioni, the diptych mise en parole “Sonnets to Orpheus”  and “Contemplazioni meccaniche e pneumatiche” (Mechanic and Pneumatic Contemplations) freely based on Rainer Maria Rilke’s and Pier Luigi Bacchini’s poetic work. An extraordinary appointment of the Festival will be the concert “Psaumes et Cantiques de l’Orient” by Sister Marie Keyrouz and of her “Ensemble for Peace”, a group made up by musicians and chorus singers of different religions and nationalities, presented by the Paris International Institute of Ancient Chants: the return to the ancient source of oriental sacred chants and its fusion with the Western liturgical tradition is the basis of the remarkable research of the Lebanese Sister, appreciated and renown world-wide (amongst her various dates, Unesco in Paris on the 18th of December). Other prominent guests of the European contemporary theatre are the dramatist and director Rodrigo García, who will bring on stage the performances “Accidents”, a staging which is somewhere between reality and pulp - the story of a living lobster - and “Borges + Goya”, re-enactment of two monologues on two quite untouchable figures, the writer Jorge Luis Borges and the painter Francisco Goya with the company he founded La Carnicería Teatro (The Butcher’s Shop of theatre)” (Spain/Argentina); the director Antonio Latella, who will undertake the trilogy “Study on Medea”: recent debut and great audience and critics’ success; the actor and director Danio Manfredini, brilliant exception of the Italian stage for his eccentric routes and his unrestrainable research “of one of many possible theatres”, who will propose a new and captivating rereading of the staging which has given him most acclaim, “Miracle of the rose”, freely based on the novel of the same title by Jean Genet, former Ubu Prize winner in 1989.