DARIO FO EVENT RESCHEDULED!!!
The exceptional workshops of Nobel Prize laureate, Dario Fo, curated by Francesca Bortoletti, in collaboration with Walter Valeri and ICC Board Members Anna Olivero and Massimo Bonavita, have been rescheduled in TWO meetings.
A special guest, Mr. Chang Wang, will participate in the first workshop to discuss his "accidental encounter with the Maestro". Please view his articles on Dario Fo below, as published on Dario's website (in Italian and English), and by a local newspaper "China Insight."
http://www.chinainsight.info/culture/968-an-accidental-encounter-with-the-maestro.html
http://www.dariofo.com/it/content/un-incontro-accidentale-con-il-maestro
The workshops will concentrate on Stage, Text and Tradition
Dates: March 7, and April 13, 2013.
Location: Hennepin Center for the Arts, Suite 502
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Cost Per Workshop: Because of the schedule change, the first workshop will be offered free to members, and at a cost of $10 to ICC non-members.
In the first workshop, scheduled for March 7th, Francesca will focus on Dario Fo's acting work and his political and revolutionary theater. During the workshop, Mr. Wang, a new member of the ICC, will talk about his "accidental encounter with the Maestro" and will discuss Dario Fo and Franca Rame's political struggles and how they have been perceived in China.
The second workshop, set for April 13, will be held by special guest, Walter Valeri, a poet and writer who has long worked with Dario Fo and his wife, Franca Rame. The workshop will focus on Fo's acting career, techniques through video, and demonstration of the use of masks.
Please register via the provided Paypal link, and contact Peggy at info@theitalianculturalcenter.org with any questions.
Dario Fo, (born March 24, 1926, Leggiuno-Sangiano, Italy), Italian avant-garde playwright, manager-director, and actor-mime, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997.
Fo’s first theatrical experience was collaborating on satirical revues for small cabarets and theaters. He and his wife, the actress Franca Rame, founded the Compagnia Dario Fo–Franca Rame in 1959, and their humorous sketches on the television show “Canzonissima” soon made them popular public personalities. They gradually developed an agitprop theater of politics, often blasphemous and scatological, but rooted in the tradition of "Commedia dell’arte" and blended with what Fo called “unofficial leftism.”
In 1968 Fo and Rame founded another acting group, Nuova Scena, with ties to the Italian Communist Party, and in 1970 they started the Collettivo Teatrale La Comune. They began to tour factories, parks, and gymnasiums.
Fo wrote about 70 plays, coauthoring some of them with Rame. Their works have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Among his most popular plays are Morte accidentale di un anarchico (1974; Accidental Death of an Anarchist) and Non si paga, non si paga! (1974; We Can’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!). As a performer, Fo is best known for his solo tour de force Mistero Buffo (1973; “Comic Mystery”), based on medieval mystery plays but so topical that the shows changed with each audience.
All events must be cancelled at least 72 hours in advance to receive a refund, less administrative costs.
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About Francesca Bortoletti
Dr. Francesca Bortoletti is a Research Fellow at the Center for Medieval Studies and Center for Early Modern History, University of Minnesota. She received her Ph.D. in Theatrical Studies from University of Bologna and in Lettres-Langues, Arts-Sciences Humaines Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours. She taught at University of Bologna, University of Ferrara and University of Minnesota. Anchored by an interdisciplinary perspective in history of theatre theory and post-modern literary criticism, her scholarship is concerned with interactions between textual and visual production. These concerns particularly drive her research on Italian Renaissance language, literature and arts, as well as her investigation on memory culture. She is author of several papers and of 3 books: Danza, cultura e società nel Rinascimento italiano (Ephemeria, 2007); Egloga e spettacolo nel primo Rinascimento. Da Firenze alle corti (Bulzoni, 2008); L’attore del Parnaso. (Mimesis, July 2012), published with the contribution of CMS and CEMH. A new book on Performing memory (co-editor Annalisa Sacchi –Fellow Harvard University) is in preparation.
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About Walter Valeri
Born in 1949 in Forlì, Italy,Walter Valeri studied Sociology of Art and Literature at the University of Bologna and received a Master’s of Performing Arts at the ART/MAXT Institute at Harvard University. In 1975, together with a group of peers, he founded and edited the literary magazine “Sul Porto” which received contributions from Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Fortini, Vittorio Sereni, Roberto Roversi, Alfonso Gatto and René Char, among others. Mr. Valeri is also a regular contributor to Italy’s leading theatrical montly “Sipario”, “Sagarana”, and “i teatri delle diversità” providing reviews, critical analysis and presentations of important theatrical events in Italy, USA and abroad. From 1980 to 1996 he worked with Nobel laureate Dario Fo ad his wife Franca Rame, serving as their personal assistant. He has edited a standard sourcebook on Dario Fo, Fabulazzo (Kaos, 1994) and on Franca Rame, Franca Rame: a woman on stage (Bordighera, 2001). In 1981 a collection of his poetry, “Canzone dell’amante infelice”, for which he was awarded the prestigious “Mondello” Italian national literary prize, was published by the Guanda publishing house. A second edition of his poems, “Ora Settima” was published in 1990 and reprinted in 1998. He is the author of various essays, plays, translations and collections of Italian poems, including Knepp, (Ricordi 1994) Nobody dies on Friday (Sipario, 2000) Donna de Paradiso (Editoria & Spettacolo, 2006) Deliri Fragili (Besa, 2006) and Another Ocean (Sparrow Press, 2012). He taught at Harvard University, RLL, from 2000 to 2006, and his essay Epic Theater, Comic Mode: Understanding Italian Society through the works of Dario Fo and Franca Rame appeared in the collective volume Set the stage! Italian Language, Literature, and Culture through Theater ( Yale University Press, 2008). Mr. Valeri is a poet, playwright, director, and translator whose works have been published, translated and performed on many occasions. He currently teaches Italian Language and Dramatic Literature at The Boston Conservatory, MIT, and directs the international poetry summer festival, Il Porto dei Poeti produced by the University of Bologna and Comune di Cesenatico, Italy.
