Purgatorio

The biennial project of Lenz Foundation devoted to the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri is divided into three performative-musical site-specifics inspired by Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, made in three significant places in the city of Parma, respectively: the Waste-to-energy facility (2018), the Cruise of the Former Old Hospital – State Archive and the North Bridge: «From empty to full, from exclusion to real participation of citizens to their cultural and urban heritage, new geography and sustainable beauty retrieval, bridge between bridges, aquatic thinking flowing into the creek beneath the bridge that does not connect anything, art / real action in theater that aspires to theater even before the last wall, before the “end of works”» Francesco Pititto and Maria Federica Maestri reflect «To propose a profound reflection on architecture, community and culture, through dramatic research and site-specific performances, means ideally linking two fundamental periods of Parma’s history. Seeking origin and mirroring it in the contemporary times is always a stimulus to feel part of a great tradition and of a present that can be up to it. Monumental buildings crossed by monumental literary, theatrical, and musical works in the most advanced artistic forms. Dante’s great poetic monument reflects the human and artistic condition of the Lenz Foundation’s sensitive actors, in the places of painful constraint, suspended theater, illusion».

«The whole structure of the Old Hospital was organized around the great Greek cross-shaped cruise surmounted by a dome inspired by similar 15th century structures» Maria Federica Maestri, responsible for site-specific installation, plastic elements, costumes and direction, explains «and it is precisely in this spatial extent, in which Asylum and Care have given, for centuries, dignity to the unnamed and the poor ones, that the popular type of the dialect actor will return to give voice and sense to the spaces of the cruise, which today are empty and useless».

Francesco Pititto, who is the author of dramaturgy and imagery, adds: «The penitents of this Purgatory / Hospital will regurgitate fragments of their “middle language”. From the big mouths of the monumental aisles, from the empty stall / intersection cadences and popular rhythms will resound, from the denuded meadows of the ancient functions dialect will echo new Dante’s sufferings. Many contemporary Daniel Arnaut -the best of the vulgar poets among the lustful of the twenty-sixth chant- many explorers seeking the prayer that will lead them to the top of the mountain, up to the Earth’s Paradise. Halfway between the poetry of the hellish language -violent, tragic, damned- and the sublime power of the choral voice of the sacred paradise, the concrete and raw dialect’s living language gives us back, straight and pregnant, the truth of the human condition, between vulgar satire and popular invention».

Dramaturgy and imagery | Francesco Pititto
Installation and Direction | Maria Federica Maestri
Music | Andrea Azzali
Interpreters | Valentina Barbarini, Fabrizio Croci, Paolo Maccini, Franck Berzieri, Delfina Rivieri e attori delle Compagnie dialettali di Parma: Roberto Beretta, Sonia Iemmi, Ylenia Pessina, Mirella Pongolini, Cesare Quintavalla, Silvia Reverberi, Valeria Spocci
Care of the project | Elena Sorbi
Organization | Ilaria Stocchi
Press office | Michele Pascarella
Care of the Setup | Alice Scartapacchio
Technique | Andrea Bonaccini, Marco Cavellini
Production | Lenz Foundation
Project realized in collaboration with the Coordination of Dialectical Companies in Parma
With the support of MiBACT, Comune di Parma, Regione Emilia-Romagna, Ausl – DAISM-DP Fondazione Monte di Parma