Civile is a project of Fiorenza Menni and Elena Di Gioia
Written by Fiorenza Menni and the actors of the company
With Eva Geatti, Alice Keller, Andrea Alessandro La Bozzetta, Andrea Mochi Sismondi, Laura Pizzirani
Civile composes and spreads thoughts and theatrical interventions.

Civile collects and connects forays of young citizens who have chosen to become actors.

Civile spreads monologues, presentations, shreds, assaults and theatre performances made of the same material of the actors interpreting them.

Thanks to Civile, a group of young people who have chosen to be actors in contemporary society, reveal what springs pushed them to follow that direction; moreover, they display the strongly imaginative horizons they created around their activity and show the daily routine underpinning their choice.

The pedagogical work of Fiorenza Menni allowed to listen many young actors stories in relation to their choices; it permitted to know their intentions, their particular civil and individual qualities, their cultural motivations. The project, designed for the city of Bologna, has quickly become a working model and a performance for other cities and other theaters.

“Civile is made of five monologues, they speak of responsibility of a failure, of adaptation to the conditions of time, of risk, rebellion, acceptance and lack of opportunity. The actors have invented narrations based on real events. (…)  Civil is the one able to sustain the contradictions encountered. An actor is the one who embodies a conflict and gives it back to the spectator without trivializing it, without forcing for an oppositional choice. (…) (Lorenzo Donati, Doppiozero.com, May 25, 2011)

Info:
+39 02 541 02612
info@pimoff.it
www.pimoff.it

Words, texts, images on Civile: http://www.civile-net.org/
Photo gallery of Civile: http://www.teatrinoclandestino.org/access/en/civile-2/

Friday 10th May – at 20.45
Libreria Popolare di Via Tadino
Via A. Tadino, 18 – Milan

Fabrizio Casavola, blogger of Mahalla, and  Anna Stefi, researcher and writer for Doppiozero, will talk about the book with the author.

Sutka, in Macedonia, is the only municipality in the world where the Roma are the majority. After a first alienating crossing, Andrea Mochi Sismondi and Fiorenza Menni are welcomed to live in the community. Along with their child, they reverses the relationship: they are other-way-round immigrants, they are foreigners among all time foreigners. This u-turn allows them to participate to the long discussions of the community, follow their rituals, compare their paradigms, and overall trying to understand, in order to be eventually adopted by a Roma family. Before their eyes the human network that Sutka branches throughout Europe is gradually revealed, along the paths of departed parents.
This experience, already transformed into public actions by the theater projects Comune Spazio Problematico andOpenOption by Fiorenza Menni/Teatrino Clandestino, now lives in a book that tells of how all the pre-concepts that they (but we all) unconsciously bring from Italy – were they good or racists- have bumped into reality, proving themselves insufficient to understand the complexity of what they see. What transpires here is an open option: the ability to conceive the individual existence, the political practice and the same History in a different way.

“The non stop existential encroachment practiced on these pages certainly weakens the ideology of cultures as waterproof properties. But, more than that, the reader is offered the opportunity to try and imaginary role-playing.
A challenge to the existing inevitably overflows from the pages of this book.”

(from Adriano Zamperini introductory note)

Wednesday, May 8, at 20.30
Macao, Viale Molise, 68, Milan
www.macao.mi.it

POSSIBLY CIVIL
Insights and conversation on the project Civile with:

Fiorenza Menni – actress and author
Tihana Maravic – curator
Barbara Toma – dancer/choreographer, artistic director Pimoff
Alice Keller – actress of Civile
Elena Di Gioia – curator of Civile, and with Stefano Casi has curated  Passione e ideologia: Il teatro (è) politico, Teatri di Vita edizioni / Editoria & Spettacolo, 2012

At the origin of Civile there is my great interest in those who choose to be actors. I love to observe and foresee the potential, I do not speak of attention to any attitudes, but about the appeal for the formal proposals, to me unknown (…) asking such questions such as “what are you doing?”, “what would you like to do?” “how?” and “why” I found myself in front of dozens of young citizens who illustrated their own life project in the art. […] They were trying to make a life choice, which for me has something deeply political … (Fiorenza Menni)

MAKING SPACE is an invitation to the persons working in the theatre and to the theatre spaces. The invitation is open to spaces and artists who bring their work in the city of Milan. The attempt is to build an area to share, beyond differences in methodological, organizational and artistic approach. Founding principles of this territory, of which Macao offers theoretical and physical space of encounter, is the identification of interesting projects from a thematic point of view and the relationship that these establish, or may establish, with the spaces that host them. In this sense, Macao is offered as a zero degree of this relationship, it becomes a potential connector for the development of possible interpretations of what is happening (or not) in the Milan area and beyond. To learn more click here.

Friday 15th March – at 18.00
La Feltrinelli Bookshop
Via Cesare Battisti, 17 – Modena

Irene Palladini, writer and Monica Manca, actress and teacher will talk about the book with the author

Sutka, in Macedonia, is the only municipality in the world where the Roma are the majority. After a first alienating crossing, Andrea Mochi Sismondi and Fiorenza Menni are welcomed to live in the community. Along with their child, they reverses the relationship: they are other-way-round immigrants, they are foreigners among all time foreigners. This u-turn allows them to participate to the long discussions of the community, follow their rituals, compare their paradigms, and overall trying to understand, in order to be eventually adopted by a Roma family. Before their eyes the human network that Sutka branches throughout Europe is gradually revealed, along the paths of departed parents.
This experience, already transformed into public actions by the theater projects Comune Spazio Problematico and OpenOption by Fiorenza Menni/Teatrino Clandestino, now lives in a book that tells of how all the pre-concepts that they (but we all) unconsciously bring from Italy – were they good or racists- have bumped into reality, proving themselves insufficient to understand the complexity of what they see. What transpires here is an open option: the ability to conceive the individual existence, the political practice and the same History in a different way.

“The non stop existential encroachment practiced on these pages certainly weakens the ideology of cultures as waterproof properties. But, more than that, the reader is offered the opportunity to try and imaginary role-playing.
A challenge to the existing inevitably overflows from the pages of this book.”

(from Adriano Zamperini introductory note)

ALTO/ WORKSHOP
with Fiorenza Menni

Calendar:
February 2nd to 3rd / March 2nd to 3rd and 16th to 1th7/April 20th to 21st / May 8th to 11th
2pm to 7 pm Saturdays / Sundays 11am to 3 pm
Cost: 2,5 euro per hour / 1 euro per hour for PimOff Carnet holders or residents of Zone 5 in Milan
The workshop is open to everyone

The idea behind the project is to propose an unusual way of interpretation, suggesting a new way to establish a relationship with the audience, assuming that each actor may play the role of himself, a social animal making a hard choice. Such choice implies various steps and narratively fascinating situations.

The workshop starts with an accurate dialogue, through which autobiographical suggestions will be collected and that will form the individual dramaturgical basis. The work of contextualization and the collection of materials from participants will interweave with a few guidelines and the result will be the construction of dramaturgies on personal taste and the creation of shared writing process that start from a specific desire to create strong empathic creative procedures.

The workshop thus becomes a place for creation of an environment where actors and writers can create a personal but writing technique that they can share wuth other participants.
The workshop will be held on a monthly basis and a public presentation will be staged at Pim Off in May 2013, when participants will share with the audience their written dramaturgies as well as the generative process of creating their performance.

For information on Civile project: www.civile-net.org

For information and registration for the workshop:segreteria@pimoff.it

www.pimoff.it