Dramatic Arts

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. 

At the end of the course, students will have acquired knowledge of the theoretical and critical reflections on the performing arts in Italy from the second half of the twentieth century to the first decade of the new millennium, with a particular focus on mise-en-scène and dance. Students will be capable of autonomously analyzing critical, theoretical, and poetic texts regarding the performing arts and will have acquired a series of tools for understanding pertinent iconographic and video documents.

What is performance? How is it related to its cultural and historical context? Which tools does its study provide to read the Italian contemporary culture? The course provides an answer to these questions in regard to the history of the Italian Performance Scene since the Sixties. After a methodological introduction on diverse concepts and theories of performance, the course focuses on the most relevant case studies of New Theatre with a focus on the most engaged forms of theatre, which allow for an introduction to the cultural, social, and political changes that shaped the Italian history in between the Sixties and Seventies. The course then focuses on relevant case studies in Applied and Social Theatre (theatre in prison, in health centers, and with vulnerable communities).