Capitolo chiuso per il Centro Living Europa?
Una lettera aperta ai residenti di Rocchetta Ligure, ai cittadini di tutta Italia, agli amici newyorchesi e alla mia mamma:
Si dice spesso che i piccoli paesi soffrono di un certo tipo di provincialismo, ma come una volta disse un famoso direttore di teatro: le generalizzazioni non sono mai vere, sono troppo semplici.
Sono d’accordo, ma forse i piccoli paesi possono essere un microcosmo della grande città, della nazione, del mondo.
E allora provo a riflettere sugli ultimi cinque anni del Centro Living Europa e sulla nostra esperienza a Rocchetta Ligure in Val Borbera (Provincia di Alessandria). A story is not over yet. Whose end has yet to be written. We the Living Theatre was asked, in fact we were told that we must leave our beautiful home here, this experiment that began five years must end next spring.
experiment: an internationally known theater company, a diverse group of artists, pacifists, anarchists, single women and men, married couples and non-Jews, hippies, gays, vegetarians, people old and young, blacks, Italians, German, American and an outsider was suddenly transplanted to the hills of Piedmont, in a small village of 100 inhabitants. A village that we come to know in order to its units and divisions, its friendliness and coldness, its tolerance and intolerance, its human success and failure, well ... all that humanity has to offer in its beauty and restraint. In this experiment, two different and dissimilar worlds collide. Thus began a long process between people who will know each other. We met friends easily. Some of us were shy and reserved. The same for the locals. It was normal for me that someone still had not approached us, and vice versa.
Perhaps it was easier for us to see and understand the "other", which for the villagers. I think it was harder for them to understand us. My own mother thinks of me as an artist who lives in a vacation without end! We do not have hours and days regular, we do not live exactly like the others live. The mysterious and difficult process of artistic creation is perhaps vague and nebulous to the "normal" people. It was also why we were trying to put under the eyes of all as an experiment.
Some of us work until the wee hours, someone does not come out of the house for days, others like me come and go as street vendors, friends, weird displayed in clothing bizarre, with piercings and tattoos. Certainly the people of the village have felt invaded, and probably did not take part in the decision that we came included in their vite. I meccanismi dello stato moderno funzionano così anche nei piccoli paesi dove sembra esserci più distanza e meno partecipazione.
Appena dopo il nostro arrivo ho immediatamente cominciato il lavoro su un nuovo spettacolo. Il tema della piece nasceva dall’esperienza degli abitanti di Rocchetta durante la II guerra mondiale, la resistenza partigiana al fascismo, l’occupazione nazista e la famosa battaglia di Pertuso contro i tedeschi. Ma quanto poco avevo capito come fossero delicate queste storie Italiane! La storia è scritta attraverso le lenti del cantastorie. Come le famiglie spesso erano divise in quegli anni di guerra sulle scelte difficili per la sopravvivenza, oggi abbiamo varie interpretazioni su cosa successe in Italia durante that turbulent and violent period. How could we frame the armed struggle for political artists and pacifists, how could we interpret those events? I could pick up a weapon and kill, if only to defend myself? So we began to collect material from living witnesses, for example, a partisan commander GB Lazagna, which has become historic in that period. We have created presentations and refined the show here in Rocchetta, where people of the country has seen some proof. So we took him on tour in the province, Italy, in Germany itself, and then in Lebanon and finally to New York. We were so proud to bear the name of Rocchetta Ligure and its history in the world. Our house with the assistance and generosity the country has made this possible.
However, to give a more complete picture of the nature and complexity of this story is enough to say that the tobacco shop local you can buy a calendar with pictures of Mussolini. Who knows what consumers think of this product of our show partisan. Who are those who like Mussolini? (This is not an opinion on the sales of the calendar: they sell what people buy)
But life goes on here in Rocchetta between us so many came and went from New York, Rome, Berlin (What a contrast environment!) , returning only for projects, while others were "full-time, their only residence is here in the village. Quelli che come me hanno fatto di Rocchetta la loro casa permanente hanno trovato nuove sfide: stando occupati come artisti, cercando e creando lavoro con nessuna o poche risorse; sentendo colpevoli a vivere in una così grande e meravigliosa casa (E’ un palazzo enorme del seicento. Viviamo sugli ultimi due piani). Il problema delle bollette nasce perché il palazzo non è ristrutturato adeguatamente da affrontare i freddi mesi invernali. E così ci siamo dovuti confrontare con le difficoltà dell’ufficio del Comune (che si trova nello stesso palazzo) per risolvere la questione dei costosi costi di gestione, che pure la Provincia stava pagando.
Qui siamo all’inizio del futuro conflitto che si sarebbe sviluppato col Comune. Nella strana e spesso incomprensibile relazione con la burocrazia italiana, nella lotta per il potere delle politiche di partito (la sinistra contro la destra), nella battaglia per il controllo delle risorse fra i livelli di governo, quello nazionale, regionale e provinciale, noi ci siamo ritrovati nella sfavorevole posizione d’essere finanziariamente la palla da gioco fra le fazioni interessate.
Nella situazione attuale, siamo in tribunale ed abbiamo fornito al Comune la ragione “prima” per volerci fuori dalla nostra casa. (L’anno scorso abbiamo avuto molti ordini di sfratto)
È indispensabile dare un’idea della nostra vita e del nostro lavoro in questi anni, perché penso non sia chiaro a tutti quanti progetti è stato possibile per noi realizzare, avendo uno stabile punto di partenza come il Centro Living Europa. Oltre a creare lo spettacolo sulla resistenza partigiana, abbiamo creato la versione di strada dello spettacolo “Resist Now” in occasione degli intensi e pazzi giorni del G8 di Genova, ove abbiamo sostenuto il messaggio della resistenza non-violenta insieme ad altri 30 artisti ed attivisti. Abbiamo provato e portato in giro altri spettacoli del nostro repertorio: “Non in mio nome” (contro la pena di morte), “Complessi Capitali”, “Misteri e piccoli pezzi”, e recentemente un nuovo lavoro è stato presentato, “Enigmas”, creato a Rocchetta la scorsa estate. It must be stressed that this work was done with very little or no financial support. Money arrived just at the shows. The tests were always made without a regular salary.
The seminars are an important part of our work. Over the past 5 years we have met, studied and worked really with thousands of students, distributed over a 30-stage here at the Centre Living in the Province of Alessandria, and in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the United States and Lebanon. We have also worked in the school every year here in Rocchetta creating performance edge with the students. (It was not always welcome!) Outside of the Living, but always under its auspices, our artists have continued to work and create, often using the Living Center for tests and seminars. Several original piece, shows the Historical Living, and some 20 seminars have been the result of this work. Fausto Simona and Cova Cerboni launched an annual festival of arts, which deals with culture, entertainment and organic food in the nearby village of Roccaforte. His "CampoCarlo" (named after the Battle of Lazagna GB) will definitely learning a little of the cultural environment of the Borbera. We also began a campaign of cleaning the river behind the house. It was just recently made the documentary, "Resist, to be with the Living "on the last 10 years of our work, produced and directed by Dirk Szuszies, formally a member of Living. The film is running festivals here and there in the world, and won first prize in Viareggio. You Rocchetta Ligure and the Centre Living that provide the backbone for our work, our trips to Europe, the Middle East, New York.
Now we must ask ourselves: all this ends here with an eviction? Of course, the Living will continue, we have always done. While I'm writing, the work goes to New York on a new building for rise the new Living Theatre. But for the ten members of the European branch of the Living who have found their home here, for our supporters, our fans and employees to our new friends from Rocchetta and the Province, the closure of the Living will be a great loss. The Living has always found fertile ground and support in Italy, but now it seems there are so many handlers secrets behind the doors, which would could be interpreted as a lack of respect for us as artists. There seems to be some conceitedness on policy decisions by elected at the polls.
We were not immune from mistakes, sometimes you lose your temper when you are under stress and adopt tactics confused and subtle, or not subtle. We often find yourself wanting to give voice to issues that concerned our friends active in social issues, for example "The people of water", but this created a conflict with the province that still made it possible for us to stay here.
(Anarchists supported by the state! We have our contradictions!) And we were rightly accused of censorship as these groups did not have the space to express their ideas ... ..
We do not know what will happen in spring when the law says that we must leave our home at the end of the contract. We have the support of some residents of Rocchetta, but there is an equal degree of indifference to our presence here. The members of the current council have expressed in words clear and uncompromising "We do not want you here anymore!" claiming the right to speak for the whole community. It seems that the issue went beyond an economic problem (if there ever was one, the Province continues to guarantee payment for all our expenses).
E 'then a problem of ideology, of our behavior to be (as recently expressed in private), of tolerance and intolerance; affinity and feelings. The most frustrating is the difficulty in understanding what is really there behind the eviction and how we can stop what seems to already have been decided. Neither the Province of Alessandria, neither the City or the citizens of Rocchetta, neither we, the Living, we seem to be able to lead to discovered the process of making decisions.
Our time while flying ... ....
Gary Brackett
The Living Theatre
Palazzo Spinola
Via Umberto I, 26
15060 Rocchetta Ligure (AL)
347/617 7283
garyliving@yahoo.com
Una lettera aperta ai residenti di Rocchetta Ligure, ai cittadini di tutta Italia, agli amici newyorchesi e alla mia mamma:
Si dice spesso che i piccoli paesi soffrono di un certo tipo di provincialismo, ma come una volta disse un famoso direttore di teatro: le generalizzazioni non sono mai vere, sono troppo semplici.
Sono d’accordo, ma forse i piccoli paesi possono essere un microcosmo della grande città, della nazione, del mondo.
E allora provo a riflettere sugli ultimi cinque anni del Centro Living Europa e sulla nostra esperienza a Rocchetta Ligure in Val Borbera (Provincia di Alessandria). A story is not over yet. Whose end has yet to be written. We the Living Theatre was asked, in fact we were told that we must leave our beautiful home here, this experiment that began five years must end next spring.
experiment: an internationally known theater company, a diverse group of artists, pacifists, anarchists, single women and men, married couples and non-Jews, hippies, gays, vegetarians, people old and young, blacks, Italians, German, American and an outsider was suddenly transplanted to the hills of Piedmont, in a small village of 100 inhabitants. A village that we come to know in order to its units and divisions, its friendliness and coldness, its tolerance and intolerance, its human success and failure, well ... all that humanity has to offer in its beauty and restraint. In this experiment, two different and dissimilar worlds collide. Thus began a long process between people who will know each other. We met friends easily. Some of us were shy and reserved. The same for the locals. It was normal for me that someone still had not approached us, and vice versa.
Perhaps it was easier for us to see and understand the "other", which for the villagers. I think it was harder for them to understand us. My own mother thinks of me as an artist who lives in a vacation without end! We do not have hours and days regular, we do not live exactly like the others live. The mysterious and difficult process of artistic creation is perhaps vague and nebulous to the "normal" people. It was also why we were trying to put under the eyes of all as an experiment.
Some of us work until the wee hours, someone does not come out of the house for days, others like me come and go as street vendors, friends, weird displayed in clothing bizarre, with piercings and tattoos. Certainly the people of the village have felt invaded, and probably did not take part in the decision that we came included in their vite. I meccanismi dello stato moderno funzionano così anche nei piccoli paesi dove sembra esserci più distanza e meno partecipazione.
Appena dopo il nostro arrivo ho immediatamente cominciato il lavoro su un nuovo spettacolo. Il tema della piece nasceva dall’esperienza degli abitanti di Rocchetta durante la II guerra mondiale, la resistenza partigiana al fascismo, l’occupazione nazista e la famosa battaglia di Pertuso contro i tedeschi. Ma quanto poco avevo capito come fossero delicate queste storie Italiane! La storia è scritta attraverso le lenti del cantastorie. Come le famiglie spesso erano divise in quegli anni di guerra sulle scelte difficili per la sopravvivenza, oggi abbiamo varie interpretazioni su cosa successe in Italia durante that turbulent and violent period. How could we frame the armed struggle for political artists and pacifists, how could we interpret those events? I could pick up a weapon and kill, if only to defend myself? So we began to collect material from living witnesses, for example, a partisan commander GB Lazagna, which has become historic in that period. We have created presentations and refined the show here in Rocchetta, where people of the country has seen some proof. So we took him on tour in the province, Italy, in Germany itself, and then in Lebanon and finally to New York. We were so proud to bear the name of Rocchetta Ligure and its history in the world. Our house with the assistance and generosity the country has made this possible.
However, to give a more complete picture of the nature and complexity of this story is enough to say that the tobacco shop local you can buy a calendar with pictures of Mussolini. Who knows what consumers think of this product of our show partisan. Who are those who like Mussolini? (This is not an opinion on the sales of the calendar: they sell what people buy)
But life goes on here in Rocchetta between us so many came and went from New York, Rome, Berlin (What a contrast environment!) , returning only for projects, while others were "full-time, their only residence is here in the village. Quelli che come me hanno fatto di Rocchetta la loro casa permanente hanno trovato nuove sfide: stando occupati come artisti, cercando e creando lavoro con nessuna o poche risorse; sentendo colpevoli a vivere in una così grande e meravigliosa casa (E’ un palazzo enorme del seicento. Viviamo sugli ultimi due piani). Il problema delle bollette nasce perché il palazzo non è ristrutturato adeguatamente da affrontare i freddi mesi invernali. E così ci siamo dovuti confrontare con le difficoltà dell’ufficio del Comune (che si trova nello stesso palazzo) per risolvere la questione dei costosi costi di gestione, che pure la Provincia stava pagando.
Qui siamo all’inizio del futuro conflitto che si sarebbe sviluppato col Comune. Nella strana e spesso incomprensibile relazione con la burocrazia italiana, nella lotta per il potere delle politiche di partito (la sinistra contro la destra), nella battaglia per il controllo delle risorse fra i livelli di governo, quello nazionale, regionale e provinciale, noi ci siamo ritrovati nella sfavorevole posizione d’essere finanziariamente la palla da gioco fra le fazioni interessate.
Nella situazione attuale, siamo in tribunale ed abbiamo fornito al Comune la ragione “prima” per volerci fuori dalla nostra casa. (L’anno scorso abbiamo avuto molti ordini di sfratto)
È indispensabile dare un’idea della nostra vita e del nostro lavoro in questi anni, perché penso non sia chiaro a tutti quanti progetti è stato possibile per noi realizzare, avendo uno stabile punto di partenza come il Centro Living Europa. Oltre a creare lo spettacolo sulla resistenza partigiana, abbiamo creato la versione di strada dello spettacolo “Resist Now” in occasione degli intensi e pazzi giorni del G8 di Genova, ove abbiamo sostenuto il messaggio della resistenza non-violenta insieme ad altri 30 artisti ed attivisti. Abbiamo provato e portato in giro altri spettacoli del nostro repertorio: “Non in mio nome” (contro la pena di morte), “Complessi Capitali”, “Misteri e piccoli pezzi”, e recentemente un nuovo lavoro è stato presentato, “Enigmas”, creato a Rocchetta la scorsa estate. It must be stressed that this work was done with very little or no financial support. Money arrived just at the shows. The tests were always made without a regular salary.
The seminars are an important part of our work. Over the past 5 years we have met, studied and worked really with thousands of students, distributed over a 30-stage here at the Centre Living in the Province of Alessandria, and in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the United States and Lebanon. We have also worked in the school every year here in Rocchetta creating performance edge with the students. (It was not always welcome!) Outside of the Living, but always under its auspices, our artists have continued to work and create, often using the Living Center for tests and seminars. Several original piece, shows the Historical Living, and some 20 seminars have been the result of this work. Fausto Simona and Cova Cerboni launched an annual festival of arts, which deals with culture, entertainment and organic food in the nearby village of Roccaforte. His "CampoCarlo" (named after the Battle of Lazagna GB) will definitely learning a little of the cultural environment of the Borbera. We also began a campaign of cleaning the river behind the house. It was just recently made the documentary, "Resist, to be with the Living "on the last 10 years of our work, produced and directed by Dirk Szuszies, formally a member of Living. The film is running festivals here and there in the world, and won first prize in Viareggio. You Rocchetta Ligure and the Centre Living that provide the backbone for our work, our trips to Europe, the Middle East, New York.
Now we must ask ourselves: all this ends here with an eviction? Of course, the Living will continue, we have always done. While I'm writing, the work goes to New York on a new building for rise the new Living Theatre. But for the ten members of the European branch of the Living who have found their home here, for our supporters, our fans and employees to our new friends from Rocchetta and the Province, the closure of the Living will be a great loss. The Living has always found fertile ground and support in Italy, but now it seems there are so many handlers secrets behind the doors, which would could be interpreted as a lack of respect for us as artists. There seems to be some conceitedness on policy decisions by elected at the polls.
We were not immune from mistakes, sometimes you lose your temper when you are under stress and adopt tactics confused and subtle, or not subtle. We often find yourself wanting to give voice to issues that concerned our friends active in social issues, for example "The people of water", but this created a conflict with the province that still made it possible for us to stay here.
(Anarchists supported by the state! We have our contradictions!) And we were rightly accused of censorship as these groups did not have the space to express their ideas ... ..
We do not know what will happen in spring when the law says that we must leave our home at the end of the contract. We have the support of some residents of Rocchetta, but there is an equal degree of indifference to our presence here. The members of the current council have expressed in words clear and uncompromising "We do not want you here anymore!" claiming the right to speak for the whole community. It seems that the issue went beyond an economic problem (if there ever was one, the Province continues to guarantee payment for all our expenses).
E 'then a problem of ideology, of our behavior to be (as recently expressed in private), of tolerance and intolerance; affinity and feelings. The most frustrating is the difficulty in understanding what is really there behind the eviction and how we can stop what seems to already have been decided. Neither the Province of Alessandria, neither the City or the citizens of Rocchetta, neither we, the Living, we seem to be able to lead to discovered the process of making decisions.
Our time while flying ... ....
Gary Brackett
The Living Theatre
Palazzo Spinola
Via Umberto I, 26
15060 Rocchetta Ligure (AL)
347/617 7283
garyliving@yahoo.com
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