TBD: Theatre Workshop with Ippolito Chiarello

Sponsored by Musagetes Foundation, Vancouver Italian Cultural Centre and SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement.

This theatre performance was the culmination of a context-based, performative, collective research project with Ippolito Chiarello and his homeless theatre allies, co-curated by Alessandra Pomarico.

Italian actor, director and teacher Ippolito Chiarello has developed over the years the concept of a homeless theatre, turning the precariousness and instability of his profession into a tool for a more direct relationship with the audience. With a small box as a podium, and a number of texts à la carte, he took to the streets of Italy and Europe, winning the attention of passers-by to whom he would try to sell a piece, or a fragment thereof, in exchange for a fee established according to the length of the work. Through these performances, and along with a wide movement of performers that have formed both a company and a yearly nationwide flash mob event, Chiarello has not only been able to make a living, but most importantly has rediscovered the power of an un-mediated dialogue with the audience. In this active and emotional relationship with regular people in the street, actors may become collectors of stories that are often untold, catalysts for necessary discussions. The street becomes a stage that brings theatre back into daily life, reclaiming the original foundation of this political art, creating a moment for a democratic exercise, a modern agora where the hardest issues of society can be discussed openly in a public space.

Philosophy of the Project
Bringing this approach to the theatre students of SFU and other collaborators, connecting them to the local community, creating a context-based collective research process in and around East Vancouver, with community partners, Ippolito aimed to offer an alternative way to read and map neighbourhoods, a platform to allow different narratives to unfold. The focus was on the history of the place and the stories of its residents, shared right where relationships are happening. Not a way to create a spectacle, but as a forum for self-representation, a way to create attention for what is important for this community and to share its knowledge, and to bring together two solitudes: that of the students who work in the midst of this community every day, and the residents who actually live here.