Founded on 13 November 2014 by the Lenz Rifrazioni e Natura Dèi Teatri Cultural Associations, it collects its historical legacy (1986 for Lenz and 1996 for Natura) continuing, without interruption, and with identical rigor the action of artistic research, creation, training, international hospitality in the field of performing arts and sensitivity, but with broader artistic, cultural and scientific planning.
The artistic direction of the Foundation is handled by Maria Federica Maestri and Francesco Pititto, who is its President.
Since 2021, the Foundation's scientific director has been Dr. Maria Antonioni.
Lenz Fondazione creates a complex project of contemporary performative and visual creations, and musical and theatrical co-productions to be created in collaboration with territorial, national and international institutions, of integrated laboratory practices aimed at people with mental, intellectual and sensorial disabilities.
Büchner, Hölderlin, Lenz, Kleist, Rilke, Dostoevsky, Mayakovsky, Shakespeare, Goethe, Grimm, Andersen, Calderón de la Barca, Genet, Lorca, Bacchini, Ovid, Virgil, Manzoni, d'Annunzio, Ariosto, Dante, Euripides, Aeschylus, the Holy Scriptures: these are the authors and works that have marked Lenz's monographic and multi-year projects since 1985. Recent contemporary performative creation projects are the artistic result of in-depth visual, filmic, spatial, dramaturgical and sound research.
Translation, dramaturgical rewriting, imagoturgy of the works are by Francesco Pititto, who directs them together with Maria Federica Maestri. The scenic installations and costumes are created by Maria Federica Maestri, highlighted by critics for her work of “dramaturgy of matter”, for the system of visual signs that constitute her very personal “design-acted”.
A radical fidelity to the word of the text, dissected, translated and adapted for the scene, an original work of site-specific scenic installation, film creation and musical composition define Lenz's signography.
The performative action wedges itself between writing in images and the plastic creation of space, which no longer has the functional limitations of the scene but tends to be a real artistic installation.
A strong system of visual signs substantiates the design-acted of the creations: the material dramaturgy of the scene and costumes, the visual and sound technographies applied to the performance characterize Lenz's plural language. The relationship with the image is inherent to artistic practice so much so that it invented the neologism imagoturgia, or the ad hoc creation of visual works in close connection with dramaturgical writing and scenic installation.
In this time, the need for hybridization with other languages has become essential, through the opening to new frontiers: immersion, integration, hypermedia, interactivity, non-linear narrativity typical of the digital system. The creation of interactive theatrical environments constitutes a new field of action that does not replace live theater but redefines it in other possible aesthetic paradigms, in the same way in which in Lenz's works the musical component is an element of fundamental dramatic construction.
A highly innovative process is the installation of the creations in forgotten or unusual places, monuments of inestimable value that are difficult to find accessible to the public because they are intended for non-tourist use or closed due to the absence of resources, a heritage ignored and hidden from citizens.
Lenz has developed the need to merge with social being in conditions of fragility, vulnerability, weakness, suffering, marginality, in search of a profound renewal of contemporary theatrical language. Since the 2000s, it has been implementing performative projects aimed at individuals who in the past have been excluded from knowledge and artistic processes: people with mental and intellectual disabilities, elderly people, with addictive disorders, children* and neurodivergent adolescents, have become sensitive protagonists of the artistic act in full exaltation of their identity.
The contamination between genders wants to act as a vector in approaching contemporary language even people who due to social or age conditions often remain strangers to it – neighbourhood associations, dialect groups, amateur choirs - as well as in supporting empowerment, female leadership and gender equality in the working group, and encouraging the entry of young people and people with disabilities into the artistic, technical and organizational ensemble.
Since 1988, Lenz Rifrazioni – since 2015, Lenz Fondazione – has been operating in an industrial building on the historic outskirts of Parma, in an area close to the city centre, but still marked by the industrial origins of the neighbourhood, where the large glassworks established at the end of the nineteenth century are still active.
The presence of Lenz Teatro within the S. Leonardo, represents the movement of the place of artistic production from the center to the periphery, the departure from the traditional concentrations of culture, the identification of the axis of exit from the city (A1 motorway and railway) as a possibility of communication with the extra-urban territory. The recovery of this space constitutes the possibility of redeveloping and refunctionalizing an urban area of extraordinary historical and symbolic importance of the city.
Following a serious fire that rendered the space unusable for about two years, Lenz Teatro was reopened to the public in September 2001, after a major renovation by Arch. Isabella Tagliavini, which led to the adaptation of technological systems, the refunctionalization of service spaces and the removal of architectural barriers.
Lenz Teatro has preserved the industrial identity of the production spaces by highlighting their architectural and functional characteristics. The surface area of the rooms is approximately 1000 m2. E’ equipped with two theater rooms, entrance, office area, archive room, two dressing rooms, scenic laboratory, costume shop, make-up room, four toilets (including service for disabled people), warehouse, lift, three access stairs and related emergency exits. Lenz Teatro is a place of cultural production, theatrical experimentation and training, and musical research.
Since 1996 Maria Federica Maestri and Francesco Pititto have opened an active dialogue with the international contemporary art scene, through the Natura Dèi Teatri festival dedicated to new artistic research, of which they are the curators.
ND'T is a project of international performance productions designed for the festival and a place for intellectual reflection on the contemporary state of the art.
The physical and expressive space in which Lenz's creations are created is crossed by some of the most innovative and rigorous aesthetic experiences in the field of European performative, musical and visual creation. The attention to contemporary creation, the interdisciplinarity of the events presented, a strong rooting in the territory combined with a profound vocation for international performance culture are historical characteristics of Natura Dèi Teatri.
A complex project, called Social Theater Practices, activates theatrical, visual and musical awareness programs which involve the design of integrated workshops aimed at people with intellectual and mental disabilities.
This training activity is joined by workshops and theatre activities aimed at schools and universities.
The great three-year project (2018 – 2021) The Imminent Past of Lenz Foundation was part of the dossier with which Parma won the title of Italian Capital of Culture 2020+21.
In 2022, the Sant'Ilario Prize, the most important certificate of the City of Parma, is awarded to Lenz Fondazione and in 2024, Lenz Fondazione wins the Ubu Prize Special Prize category.