Biennale College Teatro 2025

Dates: 8 to 12 June
Language: English
Target group: actors, performers and creators of performance art (+18 > 30)
Participants: up to a maximum of 10

WORKSHOP
Wild Tongues: Embodying Story, Sound, and Spirit

Step into a transformative space where performance meets ritual, and storytelling becomes a reclamation of identity, memory, and the wild self. This immersive workshop draws on personal and ancestral mythologies, movement, and the body as a vessel for artistic exploration. Inspired by spiritual traditions, African storytelling, and the raw power of the untamed voice, participants will unearth buried narratives, reawaken instincts, and explore the interplay of sound, movement, and ritual. A call to those who seek to create from a place of deep authenticity—join me in this journey of becoming.

PRINCESS ISATU HASSAN BANGURA
Princess Isatu Hassan Bangura (born 1996) emerged as a dynamic interdisciplinary artist, traversing diverse art forms and mediums to express her vibrant creativity. Engaging in performance, music, and cinema, she orchestrates a symphony of expression, drawing from a rich tapestry of influences.
Her artistic palette, primarily in English, reflects her unique linguistic blend of English and Krio, infusing her works with a distinctive cultural flavor. With performances described as vivid and rooted in ancestral worship, Princess Isatu mines her West African/Sierraleonian heritage and melds it with her encounters in the Western world, crafting narratives that resonate with depth and authenticity.
Known for her vivid, ritualistic performances, she explores themes of spirituality, identity, and the divine, breathing life into fictional personas. A natural storyteller, she captivates audiences with her primal, earthbound presence, channeling raw authenticity into every creation.

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In addition to the requested personal data, candidates must provide the following:
· CV/résumé (in English)
· motivation letter and/or file with link to a presentation video (in English) of themselves answering these questions creatively (use your imagination). Questions are:
  Tell me WHO YOU ARE?
  Tell me Where do you come from?
  Tell me Where are you going?
  Tell me WHY DO YOU FEEL THE NEED TO BE ON STAGE & WHERE DOES THAT NEED COMES FROM?

Dates: 2 to 4 June
Language: English
Target group: actors/actresses, dancers, directors (+18 > 30)
Participants: up to a maximum of 10

WORKSHOP
Theatre and dance are art forms based on human presence on stage. Although the expressive forms of the actor and the dancer today are different, the technical principles are similar. Using the criteria of theatrical anthropology, the workshop will identify common principles: everyday and non-everyday techniques, organic or dynamic dramaturgy (physical and vocal actions), the relationship between dynamic dramaturgy and narrative structure, the difference between movement and action, energy in space and energy in time, the director's perception and the spectator's perception. The workshop is led by Eugenio Barba and Julia Varley and other Odin Teatret actors.

EUGENIO BARBA, JULIA VARLEY AND THE ODIN TEATRET ENSEMBLE
Eugenio Barba founded Odin Teatret in Oslo in 1964 with some young people who had been 'rejected' by the state theatre school. Two years later, the group moved to Denmark, where they started a theatre workshop. Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret have produced 86 performances presented in 67 countries. In 1979 Eugenio Barba founded the ISTA, International School of Theatre Anthropology. Barba has published 25 books, numerous essays and articles translated into some 30 languages. Barba has received numerous international awards and received 13 honorary doctorates.
Julia Varley has been an actress with Odin Teatret since 1976. Since 1986 she has participated in the conception and organisation of the Magdalena Project, a network of women in contemporary theatre, and since 1990 in the conception and organisation of the ISTA. She directs the International Transit Festival, has directed some thirty performances, written articles and essays, is editor of The Open Page and author of 5 books translated into several languages, including Pietre d'Acqua- taccuino di un'attrice dell'Odin Teatret.
Odin Teatret 's activities include performances in Denmark and abroad, teaching and seminars, intensive contact with theatre groups, the annual Odin Home residency, and Thursday Poetry in collaboration with other institutions in Holstebro. In cooperation with the Barba Varley Foundation, Odin Teatret is active in the production of educational films and videos, the publication of books, ISTA sessions, performances with the multicultural Theatrum Mundi Ensemble, the journal 'JTA - Journal of Theatre Anthropology' and a series of free downloadable films on theatrical anthropology.

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In addition to the requested personal data, candidates must provide the following:
· CV/résumé (in Italian, English, Spanish, French or Danish)
· motivation letter (in Italian, English, Spanish, French or Danish) specifying current activities and whether you have participated in other Odin Teatret seminars

Dates: you can attend either
· the entire workshop: from 30 May to 15 June, or
· half of the workshop: 30 May to 6 June (1st group) or 8 to 15 June (2nd group)
Assignment to one of the two groups will be determined by the College secretariat.
Language: Italian
Target group: people interested in developing a path in theatre criticism, open to a dynamic of dialogue, discussion and work in an editorial environment. Previous experience is not necessary, although basic knowledge of the performing arts and skills in an expressive medium (e.g. writing, audio-video, graphics etc.) are preferable (+18 > 30)
Participants: up to a maximum of 6 per period

WORKSHOP
In how many ways can theatre be narrated? How does it work, in the show and beyond? And how do we relate it to the various worlds in which we live? These questions, together with the others that will be generated during the workshop, will draw the horizon of the workshop conducted by Roberta Ferraresi with Massimo Milella, through a practice of observation, discussion and narration of the themes at the centre of the Festival, the events scheduled and everything that develops around them.
We imagine a body of individual and collective criticism at the same time, which is not only a look and a word, but which allows itself to be permeated by the experience of theatre and which takes care of the environment in which it moves, striving to present its entire presence through multiple forms and languages.

ROBERTA FERRARESI
Roberta Ferraresi is a critic and theatre scholar. She trained at the IUAV University of Venice and then at Dams in Bologna, where she carried out research from 2010 to 2020. She has co-directed the webzine 'Il tamburo di Kattrin'; she has developed various vision and/or critical writing projects in the theatre field in collaboration with structures such as OperaEstate, Centrale Fies, Piccolo di Milano; she has worked in the communication sectors of various theatres and festivals; she has been advisor to various public bodies, including the Ministry of Culture, on policies and funding for live performances.
She is currently associate professor of Disciplines of the Performing Arts at the University of Cagliari, where she continues her efforts to combine the contemporary theatre system with her work, in the areas of teaching and research. She focuses on the relations between the performing arts scene, historiography and criticism, also in their intersections with the web, and with the processes of theatrical-political regeneration in the 20th century; she has carried out extensive research on the history of the Santarcangelo Festival, commissioned for its 50th anniversary.
She is part of the Ormete-Oralità Memoria Teatro project and of several journals and scientific series ('Mimesis', 'Stratagemmi'). She writes for 'Doppiozero' and participates in the Scientific Committee of the Ubu Awards. She has been collaborating for several years with the International Theatre Festival by La Biennale di Venezia to organise the critique workshop, working alongside Andrea Porcheddu until 2024.

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In addition to the requested personal data, candidates must provide the following:
· CV/résumé (in Italian)
· content of their free choice on any topic, produced in text form (in Italian, max. 1500 characters including spaces) or in another expressive medium (audio, video, graphic, etc.)
· an article-review written by the candidate, strictly unpublished, preferably but not necessarily on a play or theatre event (in Italian, max. 3000 characters including spaces)
· indicate in the online form (dedicated section) whether you intend to attend the whole or half of the workshop

Dates: from 7 to 11 June
Language: Italian and/or English
Target group: actors and actresses (+18 > 30)
Participants: up to a maximum of 10

WORKSHOP
Clowns are existential players. Everything is a play and play is everything. The life is finite – the play is infinite.
Clowns are tragic tragedians. They push the tragic until it overturns in comic.
Clowns always fail – but they do it brilliantly. They never lose their dignity.
Clowns like to rummage around in taboos. The uncanny, forbidden, suppressed and cramped zones in us absorb our fears. Laughter relaxes us.
Clowns decrease the fear from the irreversible: gallows humour.
We cannot overwhelm the death - we can only laugh at it.
Clowns are always originals. The audience recognize them immediately.
Clowns are simple. It is easy to be complicate – but complicate to be simple.
Clowns surprise us.

GARDI HUTTER
44 years on tour as a clown.
JANE OF ARPpO started in Milan in May 1981. Since then, the washerwoman has done her dirty laundry all over the world. Even as a court jester in the Swiss parliament in 1991. It is still not clean. But giving up? Not an option!
By 2025, she performed over 4,000 times in 35 countries, in further 8 theatre and 1 circus plays, received 20 art awards, appeared in hundreds of TV and radio intermezzos - and is still on the road in a good mood!
HANNA/JANE is an existential player. Her stories - without words, but full of bravado - are tragic-comic metaphors for our hopeless struggle for happiness. Although Hanna is spared no adversity, she never becomes a victim - much to the amusement of the audience. In all the turmoil, there is only one certainty: Hanna is not fat...the mirror is too small.
The press calls her a “comic phenomenon”. Thousands of reviews describe her art as: “cheeky, funny, enigmatic, enchanting, crazy, grandiose, ingenious, brilliant, creative, enchanting, bizarre, accomplished, anarchic, poetic, fantastically funny, stunning, hilarious, primeval human, primeval female...” - and place her in the ranks of the great clowns.
Studying at the Schauspiel Akademie Zürich - today ZHdK, Zurich University of the Arts - which awarded her the “Honorary Companion” in 2019. The University of Leipzig awarded her the Bertolt Brecht Guest Professorship for the duration of the 2020 summer semester.
GH is internationally regarded as a role model for clown theatre.

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In addition to the requested personal data, candidates must provide the following:
· CV/résumé (in Italian, English, French or German)
· motivation letter (in Italian, English, French or German, max 1 page) /or file with link to a few minutes video presentation (in Italian, English, French or German)

Dates: 13 to 15 June
Language: English
Target group: actors, performers, dancers & interdisciplinary artists with a focus on physical theatre, dance and movement-based expression (+18 > 30)
Participants: up to a maximum of 10

WORKSHOP
Exploring the Poetics of body
The workshop invites participants to delve into the expressive potential of movement and body language as a foundation for performance. Through guided improvisation, structured exercises and creative exploration, the workshop emphasises physical presence, the musicality of the body, and the crafting of intention in movement. Participants will strengthen their connection with their physicality and unlock new possibilities for storytelling.

EVANGELIA RANTOU
Evangelia Rantou was born in Corfu, Greece and is a graduate of The State School of Dance in Athens.
She has built a multifaceted artistic career collaborating alongside acclaimed creators such as Dimitris Papaioannou, Robert Wilson, Yorgos Lanthimos, Alexandra Waierstall and Athina Rachel Tsangari. Her work spans, dance companies, theatre directors & film creators, as well as institutions such as the Greek National Opera and Ionian University. Her collaborations include participation in major international festivals, theatres & productions as well as leading roles in films and performances, such as Medea2 [D.Papaioannou], Kinetta [Y. Lanthimos], and Attenberg [A.Tsangari].
Since 2012 she has been the co-founder of artistic organization Garage21, based in Corfu, dedicated to promoting contemporary creation through diverse artistic & educational activities. Her teaching methodology focus on exploring the relationship between the body, musicality and intention, while fostering personal creativity and freedom of movement.
She has conducted workshops and master classes for both professionals and amateurs, addressing a wide range of age groups and experience levels.
Her artistic philosophy centers on the synergy of different art forms and the poetics of the body.

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In addition to the requested personal data, candidates must provide the following:
· CV/résumé (in English or Greek)
· motivation letter (in English or Greek) explaining their interest in the workshop
· a link to previous works/portfolio or performance

Dates: 6 to 10 June
Language: English and Italian
Target group: any people who are interested in acting, movement, singing, dramaturgy, and theatre practice (+18 > 30)
Participants: up to a maximum of 10

WORKSHOP
Body and Voice: A Pathway Towards Creativity
This five-day workshop, led by Thomas Richards and assisted by the members of Theatre No Theatre, will consist in two lines of exploration.
Firstly, the participants will take part in sessions of work on songs coming from Afro-Caribbean and African traditions, a practice which has been at the heart of Richards' research for more than thirty-eight years. Such work explores the impact that the rhythmic and melodic qualities of certain traditional songs can have on the person who sings. As in some traditions, this approach to song and action is accompanied by an approach to the interiority of the human being and its potentialities. Step by step, participants will be guided by Richards and his team in a particular experience of interweaving impulse, voice and action.
In the second part of the workshop, the participants will come in contact with the basic principles of Mr. Richards’ approach to theatre creation. Each artist will be invited to present a short creation based on a song or a text or song and text. During the workshop we will investigate the nature of the creative proposal, and the participant will have the opportunity to explore its creative possibilities and develop a living and meaningful mini-creation which might be revealed with these materials as our starting point.
If you choose to work with a text, it should be one that you strongly desire to work on and have, for your creation, memorized perfectly. The text does not necessarily have to be a theatrical one; you may choose a poem, for example, or any text that sparks particular interest and creativity in you. The text can be in any language of your preference, and if not in English, please bring an English translation.
If you choose to work on a song in your creation, it should be of high quality, preferably an old song. This song might hold personal significance to you, maybe coming from your family or tradition, or one that has a strong resonance for you. It is important that the melody be precise. The song should not be of your own composition or be improvised. If not in English, please provide a translation of the song into English.
Looking forward to meeting you soon!

THEATRE NO THEATRE
Theatre No Theatre (TNT), founded in February of 2022, is a pioneering performing arts organization dedicated to innovative theatre research. TNT emerged following the closure of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, where Richards was Artistic Director for 23 years. Theatre No Theatre continues the legacy of artistic exploration and experimentation, focusing on developing new methodologies and performance practices. Under Richards' leadership, Theatre No Theatre has already made a significant impact, touring globally and showcasing groundbreaking works that push the boundaries of contemporary theatre. Theatre No Theatre’s mission is to foster development for individual artists, carry out high-level theatre pedagogy, and serve as a hub for artists and audiences seeking transformative theatrical experiences.

THOMAS RICHARDS
Thomas Richards has over three decades of experience in theatre, holding degrees from Yale University (B.A.), the University of Bologna (M.A.), and the University of Paris VIII (Ph.D.). From 1999 to 2022, he served as the Artistic Director of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, where he played a pivotal role in developing the "Art as vehicle" research, which he continues to explore today.
Richards began his artistic journey in 1985 as an apprentice to Jerzy Grotowski, a collaboration that lasted until Grotowski's passing in 1999. At the Workcenter, Richards directed notable works including Downstairs Action, Action, The Living Room, The Underground, Sin Fronteras, and Han!
Following the closure of the Workcenter in 2022, Richards transitioned to create within the newly established italian cultural association, Theatre No Theatre. He continues to teach and present works such as The Inanna Project, Han!, and Just a Little Too Much in destinations including the USA, Spain, Poland, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, and China.
Richards is also the acclaimed author of At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions, and The Heart of Practice (Routledge), between them translated into seven languages.

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In addition to the requested personal data, candidates must provide the following:
· CV/résumé (in English, Italian, Spanish or French)
· motivation letter (in English, Italian, Spanish or French)
· links to videos of previous performance works or, if none, to a video of the candidate singing and/or acting

Dates: 2 to 6 June
Language: English
Target group: performers and actors, especially those with an interest in working with the body or with a background in dance (+18 > 30)
Participants: up to a maximum of 7

WORKSHOP
BAD DREAMS
In her work, Yana Eva Thönnes addresses topics like violence and traumatic experiences.
How can our bodies on stage tell those stories that cannot be addressed by words? How can the body show what is hidden and suppressed, what the mind does not even know? What physical memory do we create for our characters on stage and how does it show?
In works such as “Dark Spring” and “In Memory of Doris Bither” Yana has been working with a firm split between movement and language, enabling the body to tell its own story.
In our workshop BAD DREAMS, we will be exploring her working methods and develop an understanding of how traumatic experiences shape the body’s physical memory based on reading “The Body Keeps The Score” by Bessel van der Kolk. Along a fictional text we will be creating the sketch of a new choreographic work together.

YANA EVA THÖNNES
Yana Eva Thönnes is an artist, writer and theatre director. Yana studied “theater directing” and “philosophy and cultural studies”.
From 2015-2022 she co-directed the performance group THE AGENCY creating immersive performances examining the manifestations of neoliberalism. While gently involving audience members as customers or future members, their performances evolved around subversive options of agency under the conditions of post-digital capitalism: How are our desires, our feelings, our identities and political movements formed in our age and how is it possible under these conditions to create counter-emotions, counter-identities, counter-movements?
Since 2022 Yana Thönnes has been working as a playwright and director closely examining the effects of traumatic experiences on the body and the horror of being female.
Her work has been shown at a.o. Schaubühne Berlin, Münchner Kammerspiele, Athens Biennale, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Festival Internationales de Buenos Aires, Tanz im August, Donaufestival Krems, Heidelberger Stückemarkt, Bayerische Staatsoper. Her play “In Memory Of Doris Bither” was shortlisted for Theatertreffen 2024.
Her artistic research has taken her to Japan, India and the US.
Since 2018, Yana Thönnes has been teaching at various art academies a.o. the HfG Offenbach, the UdK Berlin, the ZHdK, the AdBK Nuremberg, the AdBK Munich and the HfMT Hamburg.

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In addition to the requested personal data, candidates must provide the following:
· CV/résumé (in English)
· motivation letter (in English)
· link to one previous work that feels important to you

Dates: 31 May to 5 June
Language: Italian
Target group: actresses and actors interested in playing female roles (+18 > 30)
Participants: up to a maximum of 8

WORKSHOP
The women of Ronconi
The artistic legacy of Luca Ronconi who, in more than fifty years of creative activity as director and pedagogue has profoundly shaped Italian theatre, is of such breadth and depth that conveying his lesson or codifying an interpretive method is no simple task.  Given the need to narrow the focus, these working days will be dedicated to studying some of the great female characters in Ronconi's work: powerful, complex, controversial figures, outside the norms, brought to life, thought, and voice by extraordinary actresses (from Marisa Fabbri to Franca Nuti to Mariangela Melato, to name but a few).
Sandra Toffolatti began her theatrical career precisely with Luca Ronconi, as the nymph Silvia in Tasso's 'Aminta', before returning, after a busy and varied career, to work with the maestro in one of his latest shows: Spregelburd's 'Panic'. After Ronconi's death, she’s in the revival of Massini’s 'Lehman Trilogy' while the unfinished direction of Goldoni's 'Le donne gelose', in which she plays the role of the widow Lugrezia, was entrusted to Giorgio Sangati, Ronconi's assistant director in his last period at Piccolo. It is a significant work for both artists, marking the beginning of a collaboration (in the years to follow they would stage Shakespeare's 'Sogno di una notte di mezz’estate' and Emilio Isgrò's 'Dido Adonàis Dòmine') and leading them to responsibly engage with a precious legacy. It is a process characterised by a constant dialogue between the actress and the director, by an ‘artisan’ approach: starting with a detailed interpretation of the text (which was perhaps the most surprising and exciting moment of Ronconi’s work), its deconstruction in pursuit of all possible nuclei of meaning, and then its verification in the practice of the stage through the voice and body of the performer. Body that, like a prism, is permeated and transformed by meaning and speech and that, in turn, nourishes and recreates the text. For a theatre that does not start from pre-constituted ideas but from practical experimentation and serves as a tool of critical knowledge and engagement with the present time. We will share this experience with 8 young performers who identify as female, working on some dialogues and monologues drawn from the vast and multifaceted gallery of roles tackled by Luca Ronconi in his directing.

SANDRA TOFFOLATTI
She graduated in '92 from the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Art with Orazio Costa and in the same year she won the first edition of the Lina Volonghi prize. She has been directed, among others, by Luca Ronconi (Aminta, Il Panico), Elio De Capitani (Tradimenti), Gigi Dall'Aglio (Molto rumore per nulla, La bottega del caffè), Maurizio Scaparro (Cyrano), Rita Maffei (La resurrezione rossa e bianca di Giulietta e Romeo, La cucina), Anatolij Vassil'ev (Il giocatore), Cesare Lievi (Sulla strada maestra, Spettri, La brocca rotta), Marco Bellocchio (Macbeth), Renato Gabrielli (Vendutissimi, Giudici), Marco Tullio Giordana (The coast of utopia), Valter Malosti (Amleto), Giorgio Sangati(Le donne gelose, Sogno di una notte di mezza estate, Didone Adonais Domine), Federico Tiezzi(Questa sera si recita a soggetto, Freud o l'interpretazione dei sogni, Medea), Alessandro Rossetto (Una banca popolare), Andrea De Rosa (Solaris), and Massimo Popolizio (M, L'albergo dei poveri).
In 2007, together with M. Mandracchia, A. Reale and M. Torres, she founded the MITIPRETESE company, directing Elio Petri's Roma ore 11 (winner of the ETI prize for Best Innovation Show), Festa di famiglia, Le troiane, Credoinunsolodio and Sindrome italiana by Lucia Calamaro.
She also works for film and television, having been directed by, among others, Marco Turco, Margarethe von Trotta, Andrè Tèchinè, Marco Tullio Giordana, Andrea Segre, Alessandro Rossetto, Antonio Albanese, and Salvatore Mereu.

GIORGIO SANGATI
Giorgio Sangati graduated from the Scuola del Piccolo di Milano, where he worked for several years as an actor and assistant to Luca Ronconi, whom he also assists at the Centro Teatrale Santa Cristina. He has staged many classical and contemporary texts: among others the original plays "Malabrenta" and " Arbeit" for Teatro Bresci; "Le donne gelose" by Goldoni, "Cuore di Cane" by Bulgakov and "Ladies Football Club" by Stefano Massini for Il Piccolo Teatro; "Lettere a Nour" by Rachide Benzine for ERT; "I due gentiluomini di Verona" by Shakespeare, "Il delirio del particolare" by Vitaliano Trevisan, "Dido Adonàis Dòmine" by Emilio Isgrò and "Boston Marriage" by Mamet for the Centro Teatrale Bresciano; "Arlecchino, il servitore di due padroni" by Goldoni, "Da qui alla luna" by Matteo Righetto; "Sogno di una notte di mezz'estate" by Shakespeare, and "Lisistrata" by Aristophanes for the Teatro Stabile del Veneto; "Odissea cancellata" by Emilio Isgrò for the Teatro Stabile di Napoli. He teaches acting at the Accademia Teatrale Carlo Goldoni of the Teatro Stabile del Veneto, the ADDA of the Istituto del dramma antico in Syracuse and the Acting school of the Teatro Stabile in Naples.

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In addition to the requested personal data, candidates must provide the following:
· CV/résumé (in Italian)
· link to a short video presentation (maximum 2 minutes, in Italian) in which they answer one or more of the following questions:
  What made you approach theatre?
  What have been your most significant encounters?
  Among the shows you have seen, is there one that has profoundly changed you?