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The working group of the new edition of R-Evolution project has completed its first residency in Tunis, in a confrontation under the banner of discovery, listening and experimentation.

Fourteen participants, 7 from Italy and 7 from Tunisia, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Portugal and Lebanon, were accompanied by 6 tutors during the residency in Tunis at the headquarters of the historic El Hamra theater. The tutors, led by the project’s artistic director Mario Gelardi, discussed the peculiarities of the participants and the most suitable activities to foster their knowledge and exchange of practices, while the young artists, stimulated by the tutors’ work and input, produced short works that were the result of the comparison of their experiences and creativity.

From September 11th to 21st, in addition to visiting different artistic realities of the city and experiencing the local culture, the participants therefore took part in daily training workshops, each characterized by the specific skills of the tutors: Cyrine Gannoun (Tunisia), director of El Hamra theater, directed a workshop called On the Anatomy of Movement, focused on a method of physical writing on stage; Mauro Lamanna (Italy, Primavera dei Teatri), stimulated the participants’ research through urban exploration techniques. Working groups explored the city, capturing its details and stimuli, and then exhibited a hypothetical dramaturgical line through audio and video material; Franco Solari (Chile), tutor for partner Santiago Off, led a day of work based on free-body musical practices, entitled Vocal Creations. The morning, dedicated to a warm-up and vocal research by each participant, was followed by the composition of three ironic musical pieces with a strong listening component; Mario Gelardi (Italy, Nuovo Teatro Sanità), artistic director of the project, accompanied the participants in the creation of an artistic product, suggesting Pier Paolo Pasolini’s phrase “Make no mistake: passion Never gets forgiveness. Neither do I forgive you, I who live by passion”. The dichotomy of the term passion spurred the creation of short political and social works, all featuring different and complex theatrical forms; German Weinberg (Uruguay), tutor for partner company Implosivo, proposed a morning of sharing the Live Action Set company’s working method. The groups worked in the afternoon to create short choral and physical performances, starting from a personal story of one of the members of the working group; finally, tutor Chiara Murru (Italy, SardegnaTeatro), after a morning of actor training, proposed to the participants to create performances that included audience participation according to a specific role, and in the theme that encapsulates the current edition of R-Evolution “To create is to resist; to resist is to create”.

The residency concluded with the reworking and presentation of some of the outputs of the week’s work in the presence of the Italian Cultural Institute in Tunis, a supporter of the project, and the announcement of the working groups that will take part in the upcoming residencies.