International Symposium
Myths and Masks of the Future.
The mask and the myth in the third millennium.
29th April 2023, 10h00 am.
Digipass hall, Biblioteca L. Fumi (Orvieto, Italy)
On Saturday 29th April, the Fondazione Per Il Centro Studi Citta di Orvieto will host the international symposium in the Digipass room of the L. Fumi Library, starting at 10:00 am, which will inaugurate the project “MYMA – Myths and Masks of the Future”, a three-year plan of international cooperation co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union and of which the Foundation is an Associate Partner.
The event, which the subheading is “The Mask and the Myth in the Third Millennium”, will welcome scholars from all over Europe to the beautiful town of Terni province who will meet to reflect on the artistic, cultural and social potential of the Myth and the Mask in contemporary society. What are the new myths and new masks that can fuel the artistic production and thought of our time? What can they give back to the theatre and to our daily life?
The first public event of a long process of cultural cooperation between research and training centres, theatre and circus production centres, festivals and professional networks from Italy, Belgium, France, Poland and many other partner countries will unfold around these questions. The meeting will inaugurate the Scientific Committee of the MYMA project, which will operate for 36 months with the aim of offering new ideas to the contemporary production of European performing arts, in identifying innovative strategies which, starting from the Myth and the Mask, can give new impetus for creation and fortifying European cultural identity.
The leader of the project is the historical Compagnia dei Folli di Ascoli Piceno, active for almost forty years in the European street theatre circuits. A prestigious partner is the Masks and Gestural Structures Centre founded by Amleto and Donato Sartori, among the most recognized masters of the art of masks in the world. The partnership also includes Open Street aisbl, a professional network based in Brussels; Proscenium, a company from Gliwice (Poland); Cirq O’ Vent, a production and pedagogy centre for circus arts in Montreuil-sur-Mer (France).
Among the scholars invited to the meeting in Orvieto they will be present personalities from the academic world, scholars of theatre and anthropology: from prof. Andrzej Dabrówka from Warsaw who deals with sacred representations, to the Greek Michalis Traitsis who brought the ancient tragedy into prisons, from the Indian Parasuram Ramamoorthi who has developed a therapeutic path on the use of the mask to help children affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder, to Prof. Valeria Campo, one of the leading Italian experts on the relationship between theatre and circus.
The list of speakers is long and important. Scientific coordination is by Walter Valeri, former theatre professor at Harvard University and for many years assistant to Nobel Prize winners Dario Fo and Franca Rame; the moderator is the actor from Orvieto Andrea Brugnera, inspirer of the project and passionate scholar of popular theatre. Access to the symposium is free.
