2nd  Year Program

INTERPRETATION

From Comedy of Art to Molière

THE COMEDY OF ART

There will be an overview of the history of the Comedy avoiding a nostalgic repetition of it. The characters, plots and situations will then be analyzed, to show the basic philosophy of this style. The beginning of the comedy, which was raw, but full of playful vitality, will also be studied. It’s the “extempore comedy” that was not yet imprisoned into a fixed text or formal codes. Students work in groups to create a plot that contains the recurrent comic mechanisms of this comedy, such as: equivocal situations, disguises, misunderstandings, recurring situations. After the creation of an outline, students try to act out themes and characters of the Comedy, without changing the situations and the timing that the comical language has preserved throughout the centuries.
Analysis of fixed types
Beginning with the study of the attitudes of the animals we will discover the peculiar feature of the Comedy’s characters. These characters will be liberated from any psychological connotation and become fixed types that behave by following defined and musical mechanisms.
Characters and plots
Captain Spaventa (Andreini); the zany Spaniard (Franciosini); Zan Panza de Pegora (anonymous); Doctor Pignaton (Croce); the Neapolitan (Soldano)

Approach to masks :  Postures, walking, stylization.
Arlecchino, Colombina, Pantalone, Captain, Doctor, Pulcinella

THE FARCE

It’s a kind of theatrical expression that has its roots in the mimes, singers and story tellers. It was born inside the profane medieval theatre and it contaminates popular traditions of the “farce theatre” and also the Comedy of Art to become a form of dramatization that we can find in many authors comedies. We can find it in Shakespeare (The comedy of mistakes, Measure by measure, etc.) and, of course in Molière. The farcical work lived trough many époques until today especially in English tradition as demonstrated in the exhilarating farcical comedy of Michael Frayn “Noises Off”.
The farce is a work connected to a comic situation and not to quips; the plot, full of misunderstandings is constantly open to parenthesis of jokes and to recurrent comics mechanism, concluding with the revelation of misunderstanding and the overturning of the starting situation. Scene by scene, characters are constantly searching for balance often cause of the imbalance of next scene. The farcical text is a complex musical score that tiding to the rhythm of walking and stage “entrances” and “exits”, composes a structure of stage pictures finely articulated. Students will work on different farcical text practicing to manage quick scores of text still maintaining the lightness of improvisation inside a fixed text and also they will learn to feed a scene sensibility in order to capture new joke cues at every performance.

• Typify characters: unfaithful and impeded couples, the corrupted, the ingenuous, the double-dealer, the cheats
• Plot’s intrigue, misunderstandings, disguises
• Text as a score that scans musicality of stage picture
• Jokes and comic recurrent mechanisms
• Funny action, funny situations, the “torments”
• The chasing acceleration of the final situation

MOLIÈRE

Finally, the actors will deal with the theatre of Molière: at first they will practice some brief  dialogues between two or more characters, subsequently a whole act will be interpreted, paying attention to the delicate balance between text - plot - situation and joke. Students will finally condense a whole Molière Comedy and they will choose an interpretation and write an original version.  The universality of human behavior, the fusion between form and content and the joke archetypes fixed by the text will be highlighted through the analysis of the following plays: "The Hypochondriac", "The miser", "The ridiculous precious", "The Tartuffe", "Monsieur de Pourceugnac", "The School for Wives", "Don Juan";  all those plays have been staged during years along with an interesting romanticized biography of M. Bulgakov:  “Life of Mister De Molière”.

• Molière and human “archetypes”
• Non conventional acting style
• Interpretative realistic naturalness
• Popular and refined language
• Registers and tones mixing
• The joke fixed inside the text

“Shakespeare”: theatre and cinema

A first dramaturgical approach will be made through the analysis of the tragedies and comedies written by Shakespeare. Some passages from these plays will be used to experiment with a particular tragic and metaphoric interpretative layout, without relinquishing the irony or the humor of the situations.

ANALYSIS OF TEXT

The “cause-effect”
The study of acting in first grade, begins from the analysis of different characters’ feelings path. We will try to valorize the motivations and the rousing causes that induce protagonists of often extreme events, to transform intentions and actions, discovering that the dramatic peak of the scene is often situated in the quick passing from a feeling to another.
Scene and by-play
We will then analyze, for example in a dialogue, the action of an active character: “the scene”, that involves the prosodic and timbre choice of text, the pauses and the word rhythm, the physical dynamic, the look, the impulses, the breathe.
The silent reaction (look, moving, impulse, breathe) of passive character: “the by-play”, will give different meanings to the “scene” and will be the deepest indicator of relation between characters.
The interpretative style
We will experiment how dry and shaded reactions of characters, conduce to an interpretative realism while the exasperated once to a more metaphoric and evocative representation of drama. The frontality to the audience brings back characters to universal feelings, while the scenic action towards the other actor, pushes them to a more intimate relation.

TRAGEDY

The Shakespearean tragedy is staged by alternating different styles: the epic, characteristics of which are the tragic monologue and the choral by-play; the caricature, which has a grotesque and ironic style; and the first level which is obtained with a realistic recitation of dialogues and monologues. But, rather than concentrate on the form, our research is aimed at the universal themes of his works: the relationship between man and power; infidelity and deceit; candor and hypocrisy; the relationship with the supernatural; wisdom in madness; the obstacles in the way of passion or loving sincerity. During the revisiting of the Shakespearean tragedies the universality of his themes is also emphasized by the contamination with modern settings.

ROMANTIC AND FARCICAL COMEDY

The evolution of the stereotyped themes of the Comedy of Art, which Shakespeare developed into real human plays, will be highlighted in the course of the studies. Such a varied and multiform text offers the best occasion for the study of the realistic dialogue and a true interpretation. The actor leaves "the fixed-archetype" behind to become a character with a fragile and tormented mind. Through the use of the metaphor, he expresses his thoughts on the search for truth: the truth of emotions, the truth in situations, an interpretative truth. We will discover how, in Shakespeare’s plays, humor is always the result of the overturning of a plausible situation. The wise intrigues alternate the tragic with the comic situations; linear characters with grotesque characters. It's like a game of double meaning: of drama with the parody.

THE “FOOL”

The analysis of Shakespeare’s Fool, as one of his unique characters, conducts us to the grotesque style. The Fool acts as a counterpoint that suspends the plot and opens up, through a tragic-comic game, towards a more concordant and direct relationship with the spectator, which will lead us to humorist and "Buffoonish" surroundings.

STAGING

Finally we will create the reinterpretations, where the eternal topicality of the themes is underlined by the contamination with modern settings. Many works have been staged over the years: "King Lear", "Macbeth", "Hamlet", "Othello", "Richard III”, “Romeo and Juliet", "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", "Twelfth night", "Much Ado About Nothing", "The Merchant of Venice", "The Taming of the Shrew", "The Tempest", "Love’s Labour Lost", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "The Comedy of Errors".

• Analysis of text
• Characters’ feelings path
• Motivations and circumstances: cause-effect
• Action:scene / reaction-by-play
• Monologues and dialogues
• Interpretation in verses, realistic, evocative, allegoric, intimate
• The “fool”
• Works revisiting 

SHAKESPEARE AND CINEMA

Shakespeare stages relationship between man and life, creating an elastic and comprehensive structure, able to involve changing feelings. Modern man is attracted and putted in doubt by Shakespeare evocative strength. This is the reason why cinema is been often inspired by his works and it is demonstrated by the fact that protagonists of his tragedies and comedies have been the inspiration for a lot of cinematographic transpositions. Moreover his symbolic and metaphoric power creates an equilibrium between word and vision, fundamental elements of cinematographic narrative. We will first study the filmography of a chosen work with a careful analysis of the interpretative style related to contest, époque and direction. After, the study will concentrate on the practice of a dry and essential interpretation, full, at the same time, of shades and thickness.

• Text analysis
• Character’s construction
• Practical exercises on identification
• Construction of the dramatic action
• Time-Rhythm-Dramatic scores
• Narrative arch
• Reproduction of significant scenes (trying to avoid imitative mechanism)
• Shooting
• Direction and editing

Filmography

- “Macbeth”, Orson Welles, 1948, with Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan
- “Macbeth”, R. Polanski, 1971, with John Finch
- “Othello”, Orson Welles, 1952, with Orson Welles, Suzanne Cloutier
- “Filming Othello”, Orson Welles, 1978
- “Romeo and Giulietta”, F. Zeffirelli, 1969, with Leonard Withing
- “Romeo + Giulietta”, Baz Luhrmann, 1996, with Leonardo di Caprio, Claire Danes
- “Hamlet”, F. Zeffirelli, 1990, with Mel Gibson, Glenn Close
- “Hamlet”, Kenneth Branagh, 1996, with Kenneth Branagh
- “Rosencratz and Guildestern are dead”, T. Stoppard, 1990, with Gary Oldman, Tim Roth
- “Richard III “, Laurence Olivier, 1955, con Laurence Olivier, Pamela Brown
- “Riccard III”, Looking for Richard”, Al Pacino, 1996, with Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Winona Ryder
- “Riccard III” , R. Loncraine , 1995, with Ian Mckellen, Maggie Smith, John Wood, Annette Bining
- “The twelfth night”, Trevor Nunn, 1996, with Ben Kingsley, Nigel Hawthorne

Acting and New Media

The interpretative techniques are expanded through a specific application of acting in the field of new media, which is modulated to adapt to the radio language, or the cine-television language, of dubbing and voice-over; in addition to the possibilities offered by online formats.
• Film acting
• TV acting
• Radio acting
• Cine-television audition techniques
• Dubbing techniques
• Voice-over techniques
• Acting in the web-series

Acting in verse

In the theater, in order to express the character's intentions as naturally as possible, it is necessary to produce a musicality. Even in life, when we speak we produce a musicality. To say a line means to recount the musicality of thought, its functioning, its times, its stumbling blocks. The verse, which presents itself with a grid of very firm rules, is a different opportunity to perfect the technique. The same truthfulness of feelings is brought with similar techniques in prose and verse. The more the language of the verses is archaic and obsolete, the more stimulating it will be to grasp its essence through rhythm and melody. We work on texts by Dante, Cecco Angiolieri, Petrarca, Willliam Shakespeare, Torquato Tasso, Vittorio Alfieri, Ludovico Ariosto up to Petrolini and Fosco Maraini's "Gnosi delle fanfole".
• Acting techniques in verse
• Metric forms of lyric poetry: the sonnet, the hendecasyllable
• Metric forms of narrative poetry: singing, rooms
• The origin of the sonnet in Europe
• Metasemantic poetry

Improvisation techniques

The second year curriculum elaborates on the dynamic laws of theater concentration primarily on the written aspects, meaning screenwriting in game structure. Three series of questions guide our geodramatic exploration. The first concerns “challenges”. What activates in human nature when different theatrical styles meet? The second refers to “languages”. Which are the most appropriate languages to convey these challenges? Lastly, the third examines “texts”. Which dramatic texts can enrich the discovery of each territory? In short the objective given the students is to “Tell us a story”.
• Storytelling techniques
• Fabulatione

Grotesque Theatre, Medieval Buffoon, Modern Buffoon

BUFFOONS

Introduction
The tidy consistency of the tragic solemn gait suddenly breaks up on deformed and interlaced bodies of the buffoon’s flock; a whole and unite body, more than the ancient chorus, and here he comes as a counterpoint of the mythical tragic hero, a disquieting and mocking character: the buffoon, powerful and bright dislocator of reality. The buffoon believes in nothing and makes fun of everything, indispensable to the same society that meantime avoids him; he shows how good and evil live together in human nature and they express in small actions of daily life. With a look that goes through époques and cultures, buffoons reflects our intemperance, denouncing absurdity, often spreading of human hypocrisy.

Settings and references
Even historically going back to buffoons of medieval courts, it is in Shakespeare that the “fool” finds his dramatic and metaphoric connotation that allows us to put this character inside the ironic and grotesque dramaturgic landscape.
The figurative art of Bosch, Bruegel and Goya, ("The Original Sin" - "The Great Exodus" - "The Last Judgement" - "The Fall of the Rebellious Angels" - "The Apocalypse" - "The Deluge") with its colors and the anxious, expressive and demoniac charge, gives us an idea of buffoon flock. These are "pictorial images” that dissolve into new theatrical structures. Once again theatre, painting and danced choreographies come together to form a “symbiotic life”. These paintings suggest themes for study and improvisation. It’s a collective interpretation of real “paintings in action”.
The study of the grotesque will continue with the parodistic style of the medieval Buffoon. Life and its parodistic farce are unveiled by wise fools, deceitful monks and mocking traitors. They accuse the society of being governed by the hypocrisy of the king. The art of the Buffoon is cruel and derisive; it is the black but sincere soul of humanity. Buffoons are refused by society, so they turn sacred values into amusing parodies. The grotesque stories by Edgar Allan Poe "The Devil in the Belfry", "A deplorable adventure", and “The man that was consumed" and "The Buffoon school" and "Dance of the Great Grisly" by M. De Ghelderode are the literary references for the buffoon style. In these tales, the Flemish spirit and Celtic fables are mixed with magic and mysticism.

Flock, deformations, characters, costume’s research
Buffoons, who are inhabitants of fenlands, of suburbs, of medieval courts, of Gothic Cathedrals, are deformed; they have huge bellies and enormous humps. Such deformations are used as weapons of sneer and accusation; from them buffoon draws his strength. Buffoons move and walk all together, tied together in a flock. The flock is a tightly entangled mass - the symbol of the complicity and solidarity among buffoons. Forming this figure requires a long period of collective exercises. The student has to capture the sense of prank in the rhythmic and anxious movement of the flock, in the way it occupies space, in the sudden apparitions and in the mocking escapes.

THE PARODY

Study of the Parodies
In the parodistic game the buffoon chooses the object of his prank. He plays the character or the situation; he makes them come alive for an instant and show their essential characteristics. Then the buffoon will completely destroy the object of the parody giving his comment with a pleased and malicious smile. Buffoons make fun of the fashionable, religious or powerful world. Ambitious and fanatical characters, with their fixations and over-emphasized clichés, become the favorite targets for mocking and prickly parodies. Through this style students learn how to conduct a game with a false naivete and then to transform it into an aggressive accusation. Fast and sudden changes of looks, of attitudes, of ironic immobility, driven by an amazing "syncopated rhythm", will be experimented.

Modern Buffoon
Beginning with the medieval buffoon, students will end with the study of the modern buffoon. His prickly and mocking spirit will remain unchanged, and so will his unrestrained pleasure in the accusation against the vices of man. In this instance he will wear the civil clothes of the modern man and he will transform his physically deformed appearance into the psychological deformation of the character. A finer satirical game will emerge, without changing the irony and the sharp parody which are typical of the medieval buffoon.

The show
The creation of buffonish play is a formative and cultural operation with many aspects: students are stimulated not only on the interpretative side but also in the directive, dramaturgical and social one. The staged works are deep and original, very actual and, at the same time, of a universal reading, able to involve students and surprise the audience.

Comedy and Humour

THE COMIC PHENOMENON

"Making people laugh is a serious thing". The theme of comedy is explored at the end of the second year of course with a highly technical initial preparatory study that will open the doors to the style it is to at the same time the most poetic and the most complex: the Clown. The work on the clown is based on the using of silence by the presence as a manifestation of someone’s feelings. The clown is tied to something extremely tragic in which the awareness of what is being done comes when it is too late: life always catches us a little by surprise and unprepared. The clown finds in failure his sense of existing. All this revolves around the concept of immobility saw as physical immobility within a theatrical dynamic, and as the moment that precedes everything. Stillness even precedes amazement, it is an overhang that opens onto life. It is there that the sense of fragility is born: that moment coincides mathematically with the laughter of the public. We laugh for example, when doing something extraordinary, something trivial happens, or when something extraordinary happens in a banal situation. The clown moves from an emotional state to another with a timing of a child, and to understand how a child thinks means understand how the entire humanity thinks. Comedy and humor, their nature and their causes, have always been the subject of philosophical, practical and theoretical reflection on art. One day a group of actors, directors and authors, discussing about this, drafted a document: "the 20 universal rules of comedy":

1. Black & White / O è bianco o è nero
2. R.C.A. Repeating Comic Action / Ripeti l’azione comica
3. Balance / Bilancia lo spazio scenico
4. P.O.A. Point of Attention / Attira l’attenzione su un punto per volta
5. Why? / Perché fai questo?
6. Motivation / Motiva ogni tua azione
7. Intention / Chiarisci ogni tua intenzione
8. Resolution - Conclusion / Trova un buon finale
9. Frame / Resta nella struttura che ti sei dato
10. Line from A to B / Vai da A a B
11. Peripheral Vision / Mantieni la visione d’insieme
12. Look the audience let them register the gags / Guarda il pubblico e dai loro il tempo di registrare le gags
13. Less is more / Meno è di più
14. Sliding Dynamics - Climax / Crea il crescendo
15. Comic Mentality / Pensa Clown
16. Not what you do, but how you do it / Non importa cosa fai ma come lo fai
17. Nothing is new / Niente è nuovo
18. Timing and variable / Tempo e variazione
19. The A word: Attitude / Credici
20. The law of three: 3 gags / La regola del 3

The Poetic of solitary Clown
The clown has to be authentic, sincere, transparent. He reacts to everything that happens, always lives in a state of hypersensitivity, curiosity, surprise. His intentions are always readable even when he tries to cheat. He is idealist and pragmatic, dreamer and realist, b and weak at the same time. He is never stereotyped, doesn’t look for common place or laugh because this comes spontaneously from the extreme conflict between his soul and his logic.

• The research for the own clown: the costume, the walking, the spoken
• The solitary entrances
• Relation with the audience
• “ The exhibition”
• Relation with the object
• Falls, accidents, dysfunction
• Anomalies, detachment, innocence

The comic couple
This phase includes the definition of the comical couple, whose two functions are August and Monsieur Loyal. Their movements comply to a rigid rhythm which is almost mathematical. This rhythmic has the advantage of forcing the future comic-actors to decompose their actions and reactions and to follow a strict oral accuracy and precision in their gestures.

• Monsieur Loyal and August: Power relation “boss-subaltern”
• The “pretence” failure - The “accident” failure
• The announcement of exercise-execution-unmasking the trick-punishment of the August
• M. Loyal’s joke success - August’s joke failure - punishment of the August
• Fights and duels
• Analysis, study and timing of brake of “gag”

THEATRICAL CLOWNS

From these stereotyped sketches of the circus tradition students will undertake some deeper research into the knowledge of human fragility and its dramatization in order to discover the modern antihero. The antihero hides behind every "bide", which means the inevitable failure of the number introduced. In this way the microcosm of the single man becomes as huge as an epic tragedy. The audience is put in a state of superiority, it is moved and laughs, but unconsciously, with a feeling of freedom, it laughs and is moved of itself. Scholastic improvisations will be later defined and staged in resonance with the audience.
The clown’s work is global: the actor will have to create his entrances, direct them, make the music and costume living in a state of constant creativity: without a great imagination clowns cannot exist!

• Characteristics and tricks of the own clown
• Learning, thinking, acting like a clown
• Simulation of freedom sense
• “The comic trio” and hierarchies
• The proof: the number, the sing, the contest, the audition, the exam, the interview
• The imitation: the story, the news, the announce
• Music: the choir, the band, the orchestra
• Dance, choreography, sport
• The Metatheatre: theatre company, the technique, the opera, the tragedy, Shakespeare
• God, love, sex, death
• Dinner, courting, cheating, wedding, funeral
• Daily life situations
• Surreal, absurd situations
• Construction of “clownish sketch”

Acting in English

Linguistic knowledge built through body awareness, collaboration, and the emotional involvement of having to act a role credibly, remains rooted and clear in the memory of an actor. Through the guided theater “game”, familiarity with the English language is stimulated with the development of the use of gestural and musical communication, of the expressive and communicative powers of the verbal and non-verbal, of auditory memory and the ability to grasp the meaning of intonation (tone of voice, accents, pauses), to develop expressive reading, to express oneself adopting diverse strategies to reach one’s goal, to respect speaking turns, to memorize the covered topics, to recite from memory the dramatized texts. The students practice preparation of scenes and/or monologues in the English language so as to be prepared to submit to international auditions and in the prospect of an ever greater exchange between european professionals and artists.

• Linguistic knowledge through body awareness
• Gestural communication
• Intonation in English: tone of voice, accents, pauses
• Expressive reading in English
• Dramatization
• Acting for set and stage
• Elements of the English language

USE OF THE VOICE

2° Year

Everyone has a voice able to express the infinite variety of emotions, complexity of moods but often our voice is distorted by tensions, laziness, shyness and personal emotions that do not make it free and available to express emotions and thoughts of the text or the character. Through the breathing techniques the students learn to return to the relaxation of involuntary (diaphragmatic) breathing and to control, modulate and develop their vocal potentials to put them at the service of stage interpretation and express the different nuances of the emotional path of the character to represent.

RESPIRATORY TECHNIQUES AND VOCAL INTERPRETATION

• Breathing Techniques: at the origins of sound
• The rhythm of involuntary breathing
• Respiratory capacity: diaphragm, intercostal, pelvic floor
• Exhalation control: the air reserve
• Choral text, moving text, text in fire element, water, earth, air
• Techniques for the actor and vocal interpretation
• Understanding and communication of a text
• Interpretation: intention and subtext
• Narration - Monologue - Dialogue
• Rhetoric
• Dramatic, humorous and ironic soliloquy
• Laugh - cry - whisper

PHYSICAL TRAINING/ ELEMENTS OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY DANCE

2° Year

The fundamental reference point of the technique of modern dance and the act of breathing. Martha Graham, pioneer in the evolution of dance, from ballet to contemporary techniques, considers it possible to obtain an expressive immediacy from a gesture only identifying the moto-central impulse to breathe. The basic exercise in the Graham technique to practice dance is the contraction-release, movement in contrast to opposite and complementary forces that mark the flow of respiration. In both movements a constant tension is kept on the doggy muscles, in fact they are full of energy which moves between them in opposing directions but driven by the force of the same impulse.
The educational route of the second year is directed towards the discovery of awareness of the planes and factors of movement, which begins with the choral teachings of Von Laban, and ends with a study of movement which involves a collective kinetic proposal based on the elements that the students will have studied in the previous sessions.
Elements of modern and contemporary dance:
- spatial orientation and possible combinations
• The rhythm of involuntary breathing
• mobility within spatial planes
• factors of movement: energy - time - space
• movement scores

GRAHAM TECHNIQUE
• Diaphragmatic breathing
• Solar plexus
• Contraction / Release
• Floorwork
• Study of the spiral, jumps, and falls
• Torsion, snaps, and spacial inversions

ACROBATICS AND MARTIAL ARTS

2° Year

Among the disciplines applied to the performing arts, a specific emphasis has martial arts and acrobatic techniques. Both play the double value of physical training aimed at concentration and stage relationship on one side, and a spectacular and choreographic element at the service of the stage action.
• Elements of Thai Chi Chuan
• Elements of Karate
• Kata
• Capoeira elements
• Fencing
• Hula hoop
• Sockets and falls
• Somersaults, wheels, vertical, reversed back and forth
• Levers, portairs and human pyramids
• Acrobatic accidents
• Acrobatic dressing
• Acrobatic combat
• Acrobatic falls with objects
• Daily acrobatic action
• Elements and techniques of nouveau cirque

MUSIC AND SINGING

2° Year

The "recitative" develops in Baroque music to give rise to narrative and dialogic elements with a simple accompaniment, made with few instruments, while the "arias" were entrusted with the feelings of the characters. This juxtaposition is based on the whole production of Italian opera, both in comic and serious production. We find the same juxtaposition, many years later, in the score of the most famous theatrical and cinematographic musicals. A particular use of musical score recitation is the one elaborated by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, starting from recitatives in Wagner's works and from the tradition of German lieder.

INTERPRETATION ON MUSICAL SCORE

• Syllabic declamation
• Melodic course corresponding to the frequency of the spoken language
• The "legato"
• Phonation and acting techniques on musical score
• Recitatives in the operatic repertoire
• The Musical
• Songs in the Epic Theater by Bertolt Brecht

HISTORY OF THEATER, MIME AND DANCE

2° Year

During the 2nd year, the study of history of theater proceeds in parallel with the interpretative path beginning from medieval theater. The subjects covered are thus: the deprivation of the theatrical edifice and widespread theatricality: jester, farce, and religious and sacred representation in theater; the pomp of the theater of the renaissance court and the rediscovery of ancient classics; the birth of the fraternal companies which gave rise to the commedia dell’arte, all’improvviso, and its later development into the commedia dell’autore with Molière e Goldoni. The 600th: the golden age of theater in Italy, France, Spain, and England; the theoretical development of acting and the function of theatrical art in the society of the 1700s; the bourgeois theater and the theater of the 1800s: Romanticism, Symbolism, Naturalism, and Realism; the theater of Northern Europe which gives life to modern theater: fourth wall, social drama. At the turn of the century 20th century, innovations in the field of visual art techniques (photography, cinematography) and the new centrality of the “ego”/”self” which had emerged with the psychoanalytical research jeopardize the social roles of theater and give birth to a new artistic figure which will become central in the 20th century: the Director.

• Medieval theater: mysteries, sacred representations and jesters. Chrétien de Troyes
• The Commedia dell'Arte: Flamino Scala, G.B. Andreini
• The Theater of the '600: Shakespeare and Elizabethan theater, Molière, Calderon de la Barca, Racine
• The Theater of the '700: De Beaumarchais, Goldoni
• Romanticism: Goethe, Hugo
• Symbolism: Maeterlinck, Mallarmé, Paul Fort
• Nineteenth-century Naturalism and Verism: Antoine, Brahm, Verga
• The Modern Theater - Social Theater: Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg
• The birth of the theatrical direction: George II of Meiningen
• The "Total Theater": Wagner
• Influence and admixture between the various arts between the 19th and 20th centuries
• Evolution of a role: Capocomico - The show-stealer - Director - Pedagogue
• The Art Theater

DANCE, MIME, PHYSICAL THEATER

The study of mime theory is attended to from the origins of the Greek Mime which evolves into the Roman and medieval pantomime, into the mimed intermissions of the 1600s, the Ballet d’Action of Noverre, up to the modern age innovations: the Symbolism Of E. Decroux and the Contemporary Mime of M. Marceau and J. Lecoq; next we cover the more recent applications of this ancient technique in its intermingling with dance and physical theater. At the same time the history of dance begins from its ritualistic origins, whose echo is still perceptible in Eastern dance. The Western evolution of dance, however, passes through court and popular dances and their social role, through classical-academic Ballet and its crucial role in the 1800s; its steps in moving away from this route will lead modern dance to codify its style: first with freestyle dance theorized and applied by F. Delsarte, L. Fuller, R. St. Denis; then with the birth of modern dance in the work of I. Duncan and M. Graham. E. J. Dalcroze and R. Von Laban are the advocates, in Europe, of expressive dance; while in Russia the visionary project of the entrepreneur Djagilev found one the most important experiments of the 1900s: the Russian Ballet sees, in fact, collaboration between the highest technical abilities of the dancers Bolshoi and Mariinskij (A. Pavlova, M. Fokine, V. Nijinsky) with exponents of the European avant-gardes in painting and music, from Picasso to Matisse, from Debussy to Satie. It is thanks to these experiments of interfusion that, over the course of the 1900s, the artistic experiences of Contemporary Dance were able to take place: M. Cunningham, working together with the composer J. Cage, assumes an idea of non-psycological and non-narrative dance. From the pedagogical experiment at the Mudra School of M. Bejart and from the collective Ballet du XXéme siècle, that he conceived, several innovators of dance and choreography will emerge. C. Carlson, who was a student of Bejart, elaborates its method of choreographic composition through "improvisations-show" born in collaboration with musicians (M. Portal, J. Surman, R. Aubry) and dancers like M. Airaudo, M. Abbondanza and A. Bertoni. The Tanztheater of Pina Bausch, which deserves a chapter of its own, represents a milestone in the evolution of contemporary dance which is increasingly oriented towards fusion with other artistic and acrobatic disciplines, as evidenced by the most recent Physical Theatre and the Open Air Theatre. Theatrical representation is enriched by new languages: moving sets, video projections and abstractions. The different techniques and modes of expression create a visual language of great impact, able to dialogue with people of all ages, ethnicity and culture and reach an international audience.  • Greek and Latin mime
• Roman and medieval pantomime
• Oriental ritualistic dances
• Court and folk dances
• The 800s: Classical Ballet - Academic
• Free dance: François Delsarte, Loïe Fuller, Ruth St. Denis
• Modern dance: Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham
• European expressionist dance: Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Rudolf von Laban
• The Ballets Russes: Anna Pavlova, Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky
• Symbolism in Mime: Étienne Decroux
• Contemporary Mime: Marcel Marceau, Jacques Lecocq
• Contemporary Dance: Merce Cunningham, Carolyn Carlson, Maurice Béjart, Abbondanza-Bertoni, Virgilio Sieni, Sosta Palmizi
• The Tanztheatre: Pina Baush
• The Physical Theatre

HISTORY OF CINEMA

2° Year

The study of the History of Cinema starts from the first experiments of moving images, the magic lantern and the new world and from the development of photographic technique; the true origin of Cinema, however, begins with the invention of the Kinetoscope by Thomas Edison and the Cinematograph by the Lumière Brothers: the image moves dynamically; the transition from a representational to an expressive technique occurs with the first editing experiments by Georges Méliès and, later, with the narrative cinema of David W. Griffith. An important impetus in the growth of cinematographic art comes from the European avant-gardes (A. G. Bragaglia, L. Buñuel, S.Dalí, S. Ejzenstein, R. Clair and F. Léger) that will influence the German expressionism. An epochal passage in the history of Cinema is that from silent cinema to sound; Hollywood is the center of the "studio system" that promotes the birth of film "genres". In the meantime, Europe responds with a less poetic approach to distribution but extremely refined: the Italian Neorealism by Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica; the introspective cinema of I. Bergman and M. Antonioni; the French Nouvelle Vague by F. Truffaut, A. Resnais, J.L.Godard
• The origins of Cinema: magic lantern, new world
• The birth of photography
• The Kinetoscope and the Cinema: Thomas Edison, Fratelli Lumière
• First editing experiments: Georges Méliès
• The narrative cinema: David W. Griffith
• The European avant-gardes: Anton Giulio Bragaglia, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí, Ejzenstein, René Clair and Fernand Léger
• German Expressionism: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Fritz Lang
• The transition from silent cinema to sound
• Hollywood and the "studio system": birth of "genres"
• Italian Neorealism: Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica
• The introspective cinema: Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni
• The French Nouvelle Vague: François Truffaut, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard
• Cinematographic criticism

DRAMMATURGY AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

2° Year

Writing for the stage requires, in order to be effective, an understanding of the essence of dramatic art. Compared to literary writing, it does not only take into account the relationship between the writer and the reader of the text, but rather the communication of meaning in the performance itself. A dramaturgical text is a story that expresses the personal vision of the playwright but at the same time develops the conflicts of the plot leading through a climax to the final resolution; it sketches the characters, their emotions, the needs that motivate their actions; it is a text written to be performed and pronounced through dialogues and actions, but also through silences and non-actions. The functional level of the text, within the narratological analysis, is approached from the point of view of both the story and the plot, the former informing the viewer of the events narrated while the latter conveys the information on which the narrator (writer or director) wants his or her attention to dwell. Starting from the text and its plot, therefore, the analysis is extended to the individual characters whose aspects are addressed:
- Characterisation of the physical appearance
- Characterisation of the socio-cultural environment to which they belong
- Psychological characterisation
- Static definition: when it never changes within the plot
- Dynamic definition: when it changes ideas, attitudes or situation
- Flat definition: when it is a stereotyped character
- Full definition: when both thoughts and actions are known
- Character role: protagonist, antagonist, object, helper
This type of analysis, at first theoretical and then applied to the stage study of the character, is fundamental for understanding the emotional or role-related drives that propel the characters in the evolution of the plot and for constructing the stage representation of the character (attitude, gestures, physical reactions), the dynamics of his actions, the prosody of his lines. Starting from the analysis of the text and literary styles, the application of dramaturgical techniques and writing techniques is experimented in function of the multiplicity of scenic languages in order to finalise the adaptation of texts to the stylistic and prosodic requirements of the staging of short extracts of literary, theatrical, radio and cinematographic works.
• Forms of dramaturgy: from antiquity to the 20th century
• Dramatic text composition techniques
• Functions of the dramatic structure
• Editing of scenes
• Analytical and interpretative tools of the dramaturgical text
• Monologue and dialogue structure
• Narratology
• Musicality of the line - Musicality of thought
• Prosody
• Dramaturgical and scenic writing techniques
• Elements of prosody
• Text analysis
• Elements of stylistics
• Relationship between dramaturgical writing and performance situation
• Comparing languages: literary text - play - film
• Scenic writing

ELEMENTS OF DIRECTING AND SCREENPLAY

2° Year

The approach to a real work of composition is in the second year starting from the analysis and staging of the intrigues and canvases of the Commedia dell'Arte, up to the development of a screenplay, where improvisation disappears benefit of a fixed plot and text. Still in the second year, students start from sketch writing and free adaptations of "scenes", "acts", to the synthesis of entire works, of the author taken into consideration. This is how students try their hand at short performances that compare the students with the directorial aspects of the representation: from selection to the cuts of the text, from the narrative style to the individuation of the most suitable scenographic languages, from the choice of a soundtrack to the scenic set up. This work is supported with the research and analysis of the various staging of the same work or works by the same author as much theatrical as television or cinematographic through the screening of repertory films, audio-visual contributions and historical and documentary reconstructions.
• Original frameworks
• Synthesis and reduction of a scene, an act or a work of authorship
• Free adaptation of works of art
• Sketch parodic and grotesque
• Sketch comics and farts
• Writing short film scripts, shooting and editing

WRITING TECHNIQUES FOR IMAGES

2° Year

After analyzing the different applications of stage drama, the students are confronted with a type of narrative diegesis common to the puppet theater and to the screenplays and new media (web series): the Scenes. The narration is elaborated by points in the form of a canvas, divided according to a set criterion (theme, setting, stage elements, characters involved) and then dramaturgically mounted to create a particular effect (parallel vision, scenic juxtaposition, ascending climax, comic effect, dramatic effect).

WRITING FOR THE PUPPETRY AND OPEN AIR THEATER

- Framework: draft of the scenic plot
- Identification of the narrative line
- Composition of scenes
- Drafting of the dialogues
- Dramaturgical editing of the scenes

WRITING FOR THE CINEMA

- The "story board"
- Identification of the narrative line
- Composition of the image
- Drafting of the dialogues
- Dramaturgical editing

ORGANIZATION OF THE SECTOR/ COPYRIGHT AND IMAGE RIGHTS IN THE SHOW BUSINESS

2° Year

A creative work (show, performance, choreography) is almost always the result of another creative work. Choosing a text to be staged can hide pitfalls or opportunities that are unveiled by the rules governing copyright. The rules protect not only the creative work of the authors but also that of the performers: knowing your rights and duties is a first fundamental step towards professionalism.

Program 1st Year

Program 2nd Year

Program 3rd Year