The historical study of theater, overcoming the nineteenth-century prejudice (theater = literature), became autonomous in the last century, focusing on the performative aspects (“Storia del Teatro e dello Spettacolo”); today there is the need for a third approach, which considers the variety of theatrical behaviors in their unfolding, without the presumption of a linear narrative, as improbable as ephemeral is its object, but rather subtended by the understanding of the present.
Even without constituting discipline, the anthropological approach to the study of theater is able to speak, together, of what it has been and of what is still for us; incorporating and even using our inevitable prejudices in the story itself of its irreducible differences, historical and geographical. The course aims to retrace, among ancient and contemporary examples, Western and Oriental, theatrical and media, the main issues related to the theater and its relevance: the body, improvisation, the rite, the voice, the myth, the space, mask and disguise; because, when and how the theater works.
In particular, the course aims to develop in students some skills in relation to the general understanding of the theatrical phenomenon, in the complexity, reciprocity and cultural specificity of the behaviors that constitute it. At the end of the course the student is expected to have the ability to: - appreciate the dissimilarity (irreducibility?) of theatrical phenomena from each other (historical perspective); - consider the traits of transmediality, multidisciplinarity and interculturality of theatrical forms (cultural perspective); - understand the creative and social diversity of current theatre, between actor's, director's and community theatre (critical and political perspective).
Students with disabilities or DSAs are reminded that in order to request adaptations in the exam, they must first enter their certification on the University website at servizionline.unige.it in the "Students" section. The documentation will be verified by the University's Services for the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities and DSA Sector (https://rubrica.unige.it/strutture/struttura/100111). Subsequently, at least 10 days before the date of the exam, an e-mail must be sent to the teacher with whom you will take the exam, including in the knowledge copy both the School's Teacher Referent for the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities and with DSA (Prof. Elisabetta Colagrossi: elisabetta.colagrossi@unige.it) and the Sector indicated above. The e-mail should specify: the name of the teaching; the date of the call; the student's last name, first name and roll number; the compensatory tools and dispensatory measures deemed functional; and required. The contact person will confirm to the lecturer that the applicant is entitled to apply for adaptations in the examination and that these adaptations must be agreed upon with the lecturer. The lecturer will respond by informing whether the requested adaptations can be used. Requests should be sent at least 10 days before the date of the call in order to allow the lecturer(s) to evaluate the content. In particular, in case you intend to make use of maps conceptual maps for the exam (which must be much more concise than the maps used for studying) if the submission does not meet the deadline there will not be the technical time needed to make any changes.
Elementary knowledge of theatre history.
Frontal lessons.
Brief "anti-history" of the theater for problems: legends of the origins (Icario, Tespi and Solone; but also Ishtar, Bharata, Amaterasu); théatron, first crime scene (from Oedipus king to CSI); from mìmesis to kathàrsis (pity and fear according to Aristotle and the Mirror Neurons); succession or simultaneity (from the Sacred Representation to Ronconi); the return of the masks, poor devils (Arlecchino and the coup de théâtre: "in questo", the theater); the theater malgré lui (from San Genesio fingido verdadero, to the holy actor by J. Grotowski); the theatrum mundi by E. Barba (theaters of the West and the East: birth of the "theatrical anthropology"); between Living Theater and reality show (body and politics); on the ruins of “teatro all’italiana” by P. Brook's (from the "deadly" theater again to a "sacred" one).
Mandatory texts
Eugenio Barba, Nicola Savarese, I cinque continenti del teatro. Fatti e leggende della cultura materiale dell’attore, Bari, edizionidipagina, 2017
Victor Turner, Dal rito al teatro, Bologna, il Mulino, 1986
Roberto Cuppone (a cura di), Pensare il teatro. Testi di Fabrizio Cruciani, Claudio Meldolesi, Franco Ruffini, Ferdinando Taviani, Pisa, Titivillus, 2024
Not attending students are requested to present one of the following
Further recommended texts
Antonin Artaud, Il teatro e il suo doppio [1938]
Michel Foucault, Storia della follia nell'età classica, Milano, Rizzoli, 1963
Flavia Dalila D'Amico, Lost in translation. Le disabilità in scena, Roma, Bulzoni, 2022
Jerzy Grotowski, Per un teatro povero, Roma, Bulzoni, 1970
Roberta Mullini, Il fool in Shakespeare, Roma, Bulzoni, 1997
Franco Perrelli, I maestri della ricerca teatrale. Il Living, Grotowski, Barba e Brook, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007
Oliviero Ponte di Pino, Un teatro per il XXI secolo. Lo spettacolo dal vivo ai tempi del digitale, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2021
Richard Schechner, Introduzione ai Performing Studies, a cura di Dario Tomasello, Bologna, Cuepress, 2018
Gabriele Sofia, Le acrobazie dello spettatore, Roma, Bulzoni, 2013
Roberto Tessari, Teatro e antropologia. Tra rito e spettacolo, Roma, Carocci, 2004
Ricevimento: After each lesson or by appointment.
ROBERTO CUPPONE (President)
ANGELA ZINNO
SIMONA MORANDO (President Substitute)
ESTER FUOCO (Substitute)
1st October 2024
Oral.
The evaluation will be in equal parts (3/3) a) on learning the informative contents of the prescribed texts, b) on the ability to critically process their contents, and c) on the personal in-depth study.
It is recommended to contact the teacher for bibliographic indications or materials related to the lessons; to solve any problems in the availability of texts; to agree on motivated changes to the program.
