The indispensable matrix of Lenz's pedagogical thought is the search for a new linguistic function of the actor and spectator in contemporary theatre. The laboratory is the state in which dramatic wisdom, scenic philosophies and techniques of the living are transfused, it is the time in which the human passes through himself to fully fulfill himself in his artistic and poetic destiny, it is the place in which nature and ingenuity compete for the boundaries of aesthetic prodigy. It is a monument under construction to the human sensitive. Since the beginning of its artistic actions, Lenz Foundation has favored the aspects of fragility, sensitivity, intolerance to stereotypes that aim to define the practices and contents of the artistic field and what role to reserve for experiences considered marginal with respect to linguistic structures and dominant behaviors.
Lenz Foundation, AUSL of Parma, University of Parma have collaborated since 2000 in salutogenesis projects aimed at individual rehabilitation and community well-being. From these experiences, with the aim of promoting artistic training courses of high aesthetic quality, the Social Theater Practices school was born.
Along the way, the various entities committed to cultivating the right to mental health make knowledge and practices available to each other: the teaching staff is made up of both operators of Lenz and mental health services, and those who have lived and live firsthand the disability, by university teachers and students, by users and their relatives, who compare and co-design complex and broad-spectrum actions.
Practices of Social Theatre is intended to enable the community to learn by artistic experience (Bion, 1962) in its various levels, from viewing shows to professionalizing paths in live performance, in order to create well-being and work on stereotypes related to diversity.
In 2023, the Performare la Cura_Performing Care RO.CA. laboratory took shape, created in collaboration with AUSL Parma and dedicated to Rocco Caccavari, honorary president and scientific director of the Lenz Foundation for many years, border doctor, parliamentarian and activist who passed away in 2021.
The RO.CA. laboratory it is a form of Continuing Education, in synergy with university and regional courses, aimed at people from local self-help groups in ESP training (Expert Peer Support Operators), and structures its training offer through the theatrical tool (seen and experienced), with the aim of obtaining wide-ranging implications in the fields of work, well-being, lifestyles, prevention, rehabilitation interventions, conscious citizenship, free time.
Recovery College is a concrete and virtual place of meeting and exchange that places the person in charge of Mental Health services, his family, caregivers, the expanded support network and more generally his social context at the center of the treatment process, to grow as a community in skills and responsibilities, develop autonomy and cultivate hope. The project in fact involves the formation of a network, made up of Lenz operators, mental health services, university teachers and students, users of the courses and their relatives, aimed at discussing and co-designing complex and wide-ranging actions spectrum on community well-being.
The founding element of the project is the coexistence of differences: each person is involved in the process of salutogenesis regarding themselves and others, in a dialogic encounter where uniqueness becomes value, an opportunity for knowledge and creativity. The different realities committed to cultivating the right to mental health make mutual knowledge and practices available: the teaching staff is made up of both operators in the sector and those who have experienced and experience psychic divergence firsthand, in order to work on widespread prejudices at every level.
The path focused, in the first year, on the staging of PARADISO, from Dante's Divine Comedy. During the pandemic period, the guarantee of continuity of participation in the laboratory offered an opportunity for socialization and sharing even at a time when relational and community activities were suspended.
In the first part of the year 2022, the project continued in the thrust on the work CATHARINA VON SIENA, and saw on stage, a group of women from Ser.D. in the outcome EXALTATIONS, part of a broader path focused on the themes of Feminisms, Holiness and their interconnections, and the name became from here descriptive of the entire project.
Since 2023, the route has expanded with the participation of the CEIS L'Airone Community and with the inclusion of users from the Casa di Lodesana Community of Fidenza, with workshops focused on dramaturgy dealing with liberation from coercion.
Over the years, the workshops have been conducted by various people from the artistic ensemble of Lenz: Maria Federica Maestri, Monica Bianchi, Valentina Barbarini, Monica Barone.
Since 2025, the thematic investigation moves around Homer's Iliad, and the host of the routes is the choreographer and director Monica Bianchi, with a workshop that focuses on the action of outrage and care of fallen heroes, to investigate the expressive potential of body and voice.
On the individual persons taking part, the objectives are divided into the functions of
The laboratory projects on childhood and adolescence of the Lenz Foundation are aimed at education on respect for differences, the recognition and overcoming of stereotypes and prejudices, promoting a positive culture on gender relations and the prevention of phenomena of discrimination and exclusion, bullying, cyber bullying, racism, homophobia and violence through the use of artistic and cultural languages. Due to its contents and the methods of training processes, the project presents itself as an innovative model of reactivation of social relationships, in full exaltation of talents and vocations.
Since 2025, Lab Kids MOVE + MOVIE has been offering an innovative double path aimed at small groups of participants. The choice of small groups aims to encourage the development of authentic relationships, the choice of short paths aims to prevent dispersion by maximizing the possibility of concluding the process. The MOVE path uses the theatrical tool understood as reactivation and exploration of breathing, corporeality and vocality through movement practices and scenic composition taken from contemporary performative languages. The MOVIE path instead uses the tool of video shooting as an exploration and discovery of oneself and others, mediated by the use of digital instruments, in order to build compositions for images.
Lenz Fondazione and Zona Franca, with the coordination of the Municipality of Parma, have collaborated since 2016 for laboratory projects aimed at education on respect for differences, recognition and overcoming of stereotypes and prejudices, to foster a positive culture on gender relations and prevent phenomena of discrimination and exclusion, bullying, cyber bullying, racism, homophobia and gender violence using artistic and cultural languages.
It is carried out within primary and secondary schools in the province of Parma as part of the project "Let's hold ourselves in Con-Tatto to educate in the recognition and valorization of differences", promoted by the Educational Services of the Municipality of Parma.
Among the public engagement actions aimed at broadening theatrical culture in the community, Lenz Fondazione has been implementing the Visioni project since 2019, aimed at self-help groups in the area, in order to increase the accessibility of contemporary semantics and provide potential new spectators with psychic sensitivity interpretative tools on cultural production, reflecting on a more operational definition of fair and inclusive languages.
For each event of the Lenz theater season, users of the self-help groups have the opportunity to participate in pre- and post-show in-depth meetings and in-depth seminars, with the Lenz workers and with the artists hosted in the spaces of Lenz Teatro, to share impressions and questions, and to acquire information that allows us to understand performative works often perceived as difficult.
The most up-to-date scientific literature has demonstrated, in fact, how fully participating in cultural experiences can become, in some cases, a concrete alternative to pharmacological therapy, reduce stress levels and increase those of perceived well-being, from a salutogenetic perspective that looks, in a context of welfare production that also passes through culture, at prevention as well as harm reduction.