I pick up the thread of the story from my dear colleague Shadaan Felfeli, who brought us the diary from Sligo.
It is now my task to tell you about the second phase of the project, this time “at home,” in Italy, from July 21 to 27, at the Teatro dell’Argine headquarters, the ITC Teatro of San Lazzaro.
From the very start, I want to thank the entire staff of Teatro dell’Argine for their extraordinary hospitality and warm welcome.
I am Sanam Naderi, Cre-Actor of the Italian group.
Meeting the group again after almost two months — since May, when we had parted with great joy in Sligo — and seeing each other once more, full of enthusiasm, in Bologna, was very moving.
The absence of the Brazilian actress from the Irish group, Tatiana dos Santos, in this second phase was a hard blow.
The long waiting times for the Irish residence permit, which would allow her to leave and re-enter the country without problems, prevented her from being with us in this phase.
Her absence — just like her presence — is significant and touching, for the wonderful person and artist that she is.
At the same time, I believe it gives us even greater strength and clarity to face themes such as migration, journeys, permanence, and everything that defines us as people and as artists. And it makes our work even more necessary, in relation to the times we are living in.
Nevertheless, Tatiana was updated on every step and decision taken throughout the week, thanks to our extraordinary and patient Italian directors, Micaela Casalboni and Andrea Paolucci.
A body that, even if not always cohesive or perfect, walks and works together.
It was not about imitating or seeking perfection, but about remaining in listening.
Moving in harmony, even in disagreement.
After the initial exercises, the directors shared their vision and the path that lay ahead.
While they spoke, translations were happening in parallel — into Italian, French, and English. Every word, every nuance was carefully translated, so that everyone, actors and non-actors, could be present and engaged.
I am among the few in the room who speak only Italian and a little English, in addition to Farsi, my mother tongue. I always have to concentrate deeply not to miss anything, to understand well and stay connected.
In this second phase of the project, we are focusing on young people — those of today, who will be tomorrow.
The directors, with calm and care, explained to us their vision of the mythological story and how they intend to bring it to the stage.
From the very first day we were asked, as people and as actors, to step into the shoes of young people and try to understand and listen to their needs, their dreams, their hunger and thirst for knowledge.
From this, some questions arose:
– Is it still possible to glimpse a Utopia in our society?
– What does politics have to offer young people?
– What does it have in store for them, who are our future?
Finally, the game begins: division into two large groups, each with a leader.
To each group, some titles to start from, to create improvisations.
This phase of the work is stimulating: everyone brings their own vision, the result of individual or collective readings, and the task is to translate it into a common language, to share with the group. In groups of 6 or 7 people, everyone wants to contribute, to give their best.
Active listening, having the patience to hear everyone, and among the many ideas finding the most surprising, the most shared, or the most brilliant one and then turning it into stage action, becomes necessary — and it is one of the most important keys to both phases — in Sligo as well as now in Bologna.
After each presentation, space for sharing: thoughts, opinions, reflections.
The debates started from the scenes, but immediately widened to current social and political issues.
The creative process led us to search for answers together.
Answers that became scenes, gestures, words — even in conflict with one another.
As Jonathan Meth said: “a functional contrast.”
Theatre is born this way: from a serious game, from a complex and creative process, made of actors, directors, dramaturges, words and actions.
But true theatre happens in the mind of the audience.
It is the spectator who decides what they have seen.
If I had to choose a single word to describe the first day, I would say:
game.
The body is the starting point: different bodies like that of our Minotaur, bodies in transformation like those of adolescents, or adult bodies marked by the complexity of the history we live in.
The theme of translation in our collective improvisations continues to be central. Fundamental, in fact: in a project like ours — collective, multilingual, open — it is essential that everyone can express themselves, but also understand what is happening: every word, every gesture, every silence.
Translation is not just transferring words from one language to another. It is telling well what one thinks. It is listening and interpreting. And so translation itself becomes a form of art, invisible but vital.
As Pasolini reminded us, tradurre significa anche tradire (to translate also means to betray). But that betrayal can be creative, regenerative.
Translation is not only a linguistic passage; it is also a political and artistic choice.
Because language, in this project, is the element that connects and allows the passage from individual to collective.
And so a fundamental question arises:
What will our audience understand from all this?
Among the answers that emerged, two remain impressed:
– To have clear ideas
– To be honest with the audience
Because theatre, if it is not honest, does not reach. And if it is not clear, it does not communicate.
The key word of the day? Silence.
That silence that is not empty, but a space for listening.
A space to translate, to think, to welcome.
We build the scenes with very few objects. No realism, only cloths, torches, sticks, and 22 black cubes: the famous cubes of Teatro dell’Argine.
They are essential, but very powerful, because they become everything: tables, beds, chairs, walls. Sometimes even invisible human beings.
They stimulate imagination, they force us to reinvent.
Today I do not bring home a single word, but a phrase that remains:
“Sometimes the details surrounding the actors on stage are more essential and important than the actors’ own bodies. We call them vital details.”
If in Sligo we had focused on the presence and absence of women in history and society — yesterday, today, always — and had discussed patriarchy, here the focus inevitably shifts to another great theme: the new generations.
We talk about Italian adolescents, second and third generation girls and boys, young people from the Parisian banlieues, Swedish teenagers.
Our Swedish Cre-Actors are not so far, in age, from adolescence itself.
Through them comes a lucid, authentic gaze on the thoughts and experiences of their peers.
Themes emerge forcefully: identity, belonging, visible and invisible borders.
Historical borders and social norms that still separate us today:
females from males, whites from blacks, the so-called “able” from the so-called “disabled”, young from old, rich from poor, newcomers from “those always here.”
Thin lines, unspoken but always present, which manifest above all in bodies — visible, tangible, often ignored.
The word I take home today is: urban bodies.
Non-conforming bodies, scattered, visible through exaggerated clothes, elusive gazes, restless movements.
Bodies wandering in cities, neighbourhoods, society.
Moving alone or in groups.
In front of churches, outside libraries, in stations, at bus terminals.
Sitting on sidewalks, immersed in the flow of daily life.
And they seem to want to say only one thing: “We are here.”
Something extraordinary happened today.
I don’t believe in destiny — or at least, not in a religious sense — but something historic happened.
And I wonder: why today?
Why this very week, while I am working on this project?
After 21 years in Italy, spent studying, working, in social activism...
After almost 3 years of waiting,
at lunchtime I received an email from the Ministry of the Interior.
The emotion is overwhelming.
Stress and agitation block me.
I struggle to concentrate,
to hold the phone,
to click on the links,
to truly understand what’s happening.
I desperately look for Younes El Bouzari.
He always manages to be calmer than me in these moments.
He’s already gone through those steps, he knows the process well.
I find him. I ask him to help me understand.
He jumps from one link to another, explores the web, reads me something I can’t grasp at first.
Then he looks at me, and with a smile I will never forget, he says:
“Italian citizenship is granted.”
“You are Italian.”
And then he adds, laughing:
“From now on it will be the problem of the Italian State to get you out of a feminist protest or any other demonstration.”
“I will no longer be an invisible urban body.”
This is the first thought that crosses my mind.
“I will be a body that exists, that is seen, recognized.”
And above all: I can travel.
I can finally move anywhere, freely.
I will no longer carry my being-a-border on my shoulders.
Of course, that border will continue to live within me — because it is my story, and no one can erase it.
But it will no longer be an obstacle in the eyes of the State.
From today, no office — as is still happening to Tatiana — will ever be able to tell me again:
“You cannot leave, because your return is at risk.”
No words. Only small sounds, whispered, almost imperceptible — like the rustling of leaves in a forest, or the slow dripping of rain inside a cave.
And a faint light, almost absent. A semi-darkness that envelops.
Everything moves — or is perceived — within a minimal and intimate atmosphere.
It is all a play between being and not being.
Today our directors assigned writing tasks to some Cre-Actors.
During the sharing of the physical work, their voices intertwined with movement, in a delicate and profound encounter between word and body, between voice and presence.
Every sentence seemed to be born directly from the skin, from the breath, from the sound of bones in motion.
Words that walk.
Silences that breathe.
The word of the day is not one, but a double urgency: hunger and thirst for knowledge.
Andrea and Micaela explain to us that, in the last two days remaining, we will work on what we already have.
This means one very clear thing: fewer words, more actions.
After five intense days, full of words, discussions and translations, ah, finally, perhaps the time has come to appreciate silence — the silence that may have been missing in the previous days — and to concentrate.
To clean up, lighten, and focus on our scenes.
To really listen to the directors’ needs.
To trust.
I deeply believe in group work carried out horizontally, in a collective practice.
This process, which involved us from A to Z — as actors, but also as people — has broken the traditional form of theatre, where directives often come from above.
But now I feel the need to let myself go to the vision of my directors.
And this, for me, means only one thing: Trust.
The word of the sixth day.
Between warmth, coolness, and rain, we went through a full week, together.
We worked every day, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
And after 6 p.m.… everything happened:
– ice-cream marathons
– walks in the historic centre
– trips on the Bolognese hills
– evenings of shared dances
– parties at the French apartment, where we danced to Indian music
– and every morning, the shared battle with public transport.
All this, in its small chaos, brought us closer.
It helped us get to know each other better and, therefore, to work better together.
And as if by magic, on the last day, we all managed to catch the same bus to San Lazzaro.
A small collective achievement, to close a great week.
Today Michi has decided to share the warm-up leadership with some actors:
– Younes El Bouzari led us in a collective dance
– Sandra O’Malley in a choral song
– Doreen Ndagire proposed a listening game.
Then we did a work of theatrical patchwork, cleaning and synthesizing some of the scenes built together.
Finally, the word passed to Jonathan Meth, who told us about the next steps towards Paris: what awaits us, how we will organize, what we will need to prepare to face.
Several months will pass, but Vincent Mangado and Dominique Jambert have already anticipated that they will assign us tasks to carry out until our arrival in Paris.
And this will help us bridge the wait.
Waiting: the seventh and last keyword of this complex, rich, and stimulating week.
It is now my task to tell you about the second phase of the project, this time “at home,” in Italy, from July 21 to 27, at the Teatro dell’Argine headquarters, the ITC Teatro of San Lazzaro.
From the very start, I want to thank the entire staff of Teatro dell’Argine for their extraordinary hospitality and warm welcome.
I am Sanam Naderi, Cre-Actor of the Italian group.
Meeting the group again after almost two months — since May, when we had parted with great joy in Sligo — and seeing each other once more, full of enthusiasm, in Bologna, was very moving.
The absence of the Brazilian actress from the Irish group, Tatiana dos Santos, in this second phase was a hard blow.
The long waiting times for the Irish residence permit, which would allow her to leave and re-enter the country without problems, prevented her from being with us in this phase.
Her absence — just like her presence — is significant and touching, for the wonderful person and artist that she is.
At the same time, I believe it gives us even greater strength and clarity to face themes such as migration, journeys, permanence, and everything that defines us as people and as artists. And it makes our work even more necessary, in relation to the times we are living in.
Nevertheless, Tatiana was updated on every step and decision taken throughout the week, thanks to our extraordinary and patient Italian directors, Micaela Casalboni and Andrea Paolucci.
ph Davide Saccà
First day of work: the game begins.
The first day — as throughout the week — began with exercises guided by Micaela: collective listening exercises, useful for finding the group again, for feeling part of a single body.A body that, even if not always cohesive or perfect, walks and works together.
It was not about imitating or seeking perfection, but about remaining in listening.
Moving in harmony, even in disagreement.
After the initial exercises, the directors shared their vision and the path that lay ahead.
While they spoke, translations were happening in parallel — into Italian, French, and English. Every word, every nuance was carefully translated, so that everyone, actors and non-actors, could be present and engaged.
I am among the few in the room who speak only Italian and a little English, in addition to Farsi, my mother tongue. I always have to concentrate deeply not to miss anything, to understand well and stay connected.
In this second phase of the project, we are focusing on young people — those of today, who will be tomorrow.
The directors, with calm and care, explained to us their vision of the mythological story and how they intend to bring it to the stage.
From the very first day we were asked, as people and as actors, to step into the shoes of young people and try to understand and listen to their needs, their dreams, their hunger and thirst for knowledge.
From this, some questions arose:
– Is it still possible to glimpse a Utopia in our society?
– What does politics have to offer young people?
– What does it have in store for them, who are our future?
Finally, the game begins: division into two large groups, each with a leader.
To each group, some titles to start from, to create improvisations.
This phase of the work is stimulating: everyone brings their own vision, the result of individual or collective readings, and the task is to translate it into a common language, to share with the group. In groups of 6 or 7 people, everyone wants to contribute, to give their best.
Active listening, having the patience to hear everyone, and among the many ideas finding the most surprising, the most shared, or the most brilliant one and then turning it into stage action, becomes necessary — and it is one of the most important keys to both phases — in Sligo as well as now in Bologna.
After each presentation, space for sharing: thoughts, opinions, reflections.
The debates started from the scenes, but immediately widened to current social and political issues.
The creative process led us to search for answers together.
Answers that became scenes, gestures, words — even in conflict with one another.
As Jonathan Meth said: “a functional contrast.”
Theatre is born this way: from a serious game, from a complex and creative process, made of actors, directors, dramaturges, words and actions.
But true theatre happens in the mind of the audience.
It is the spectator who decides what they have seen.
If I had to choose a single word to describe the first day, I would say:
game.
Second day
The second day also began on time: 10 a.m., in a circle, with exercises guided by Micaela.The body is the starting point: different bodies like that of our Minotaur, bodies in transformation like those of adolescents, or adult bodies marked by the complexity of the history we live in.
The theme of translation in our collective improvisations continues to be central. Fundamental, in fact: in a project like ours — collective, multilingual, open — it is essential that everyone can express themselves, but also understand what is happening: every word, every gesture, every silence.
Translation is not just transferring words from one language to another. It is telling well what one thinks. It is listening and interpreting. And so translation itself becomes a form of art, invisible but vital.
As Pasolini reminded us, tradurre significa anche tradire (to translate also means to betray). But that betrayal can be creative, regenerative.
Translation is not only a linguistic passage; it is also a political and artistic choice.
Because language, in this project, is the element that connects and allows the passage from individual to collective.
And so a fundamental question arises:
What will our audience understand from all this?
Among the answers that emerged, two remain impressed:
– To have clear ideas
– To be honest with the audience
Because theatre, if it is not honest, does not reach. And if it is not clear, it does not communicate.
The key word of the day? Silence.
That silence that is not empty, but a space for listening.
A space to translate, to think, to welcome.
Third day: vital details
The theatrical work of creation, on the third day, continues and enriches itself: to the creative improvisations, the physical choreographies, and the writing of texts are now added proposals for music and lights.We build the scenes with very few objects. No realism, only cloths, torches, sticks, and 22 black cubes: the famous cubes of Teatro dell’Argine.
They are essential, but very powerful, because they become everything: tables, beds, chairs, walls. Sometimes even invisible human beings.
They stimulate imagination, they force us to reinvent.
Today I do not bring home a single word, but a phrase that remains:
“Sometimes the details surrounding the actors on stage are more essential and important than the actors’ own bodies. We call them vital details.”
Fourth day
The improvisations, day by day, are taking an increasingly political direction.If in Sligo we had focused on the presence and absence of women in history and society — yesterday, today, always — and had discussed patriarchy, here the focus inevitably shifts to another great theme: the new generations.
We talk about Italian adolescents, second and third generation girls and boys, young people from the Parisian banlieues, Swedish teenagers.
Our Swedish Cre-Actors are not so far, in age, from adolescence itself.
Through them comes a lucid, authentic gaze on the thoughts and experiences of their peers.
Themes emerge forcefully: identity, belonging, visible and invisible borders.
Historical borders and social norms that still separate us today:
females from males, whites from blacks, the so-called “able” from the so-called “disabled”, young from old, rich from poor, newcomers from “those always here.”
Thin lines, unspoken but always present, which manifest above all in bodies — visible, tangible, often ignored.
The word I take home today is: urban bodies.
Non-conforming bodies, scattered, visible through exaggerated clothes, elusive gazes, restless movements.
Bodies wandering in cities, neighbourhoods, society.
Moving alone or in groups.
In front of churches, outside libraries, in stations, at bus terminals.
Sitting on sidewalks, immersed in the flow of daily life.
And they seem to want to say only one thing: “We are here.”
Something extraordinary happened today.
I don’t believe in destiny — or at least, not in a religious sense — but something historic happened.
And I wonder: why today?
Why this very week, while I am working on this project?
After 21 years in Italy, spent studying, working, in social activism...
After almost 3 years of waiting,
at lunchtime I received an email from the Ministry of the Interior.
The emotion is overwhelming.
Stress and agitation block me.
I struggle to concentrate,
to hold the phone,
to click on the links,
to truly understand what’s happening.
I desperately look for Younes El Bouzari.
He always manages to be calmer than me in these moments.
He’s already gone through those steps, he knows the process well.
I find him. I ask him to help me understand.
He jumps from one link to another, explores the web, reads me something I can’t grasp at first.
Then he looks at me, and with a smile I will never forget, he says:
“Italian citizenship is granted.”
“You are Italian.”
And then he adds, laughing:
“From now on it will be the problem of the Italian State to get you out of a feminist protest or any other demonstration.”
“I will no longer be an invisible urban body.”
This is the first thought that crosses my mind.
“I will be a body that exists, that is seen, recognized.”
And above all: I can travel.
I can finally move anywhere, freely.
I will no longer carry my being-a-border on my shoulders.
Of course, that border will continue to live within me — because it is my story, and no one can erase it.
But it will no longer be an obstacle in the eyes of the State.
From today, no office — as is still happening to Tatiana — will ever be able to tell me again:
“You cannot leave, because your return is at risk.”
Fifth day
The choreographic exercises proposed by our directors are increasingly taking shape in a stage game whose protagonists are our urban bodies and their sounds: the noise of chewing, of waking up, of breathing.No words. Only small sounds, whispered, almost imperceptible — like the rustling of leaves in a forest, or the slow dripping of rain inside a cave.
And a faint light, almost absent. A semi-darkness that envelops.
Everything moves — or is perceived — within a minimal and intimate atmosphere.
It is all a play between being and not being.
Today our directors assigned writing tasks to some Cre-Actors.
During the sharing of the physical work, their voices intertwined with movement, in a delicate and profound encounter between word and body, between voice and presence.
Every sentence seemed to be born directly from the skin, from the breath, from the sound of bones in motion.
Words that walk.
Silences that breathe.
The word of the day is not one, but a double urgency: hunger and thirst for knowledge.
Sixth day – Penultimate day
On the sixth day we finish with the improvisations.Andrea and Micaela explain to us that, in the last two days remaining, we will work on what we already have.
This means one very clear thing: fewer words, more actions.
After five intense days, full of words, discussions and translations, ah, finally, perhaps the time has come to appreciate silence — the silence that may have been missing in the previous days — and to concentrate.
To clean up, lighten, and focus on our scenes.
To really listen to the directors’ needs.
To trust.
I deeply believe in group work carried out horizontally, in a collective practice.
This process, which involved us from A to Z — as actors, but also as people — has broken the traditional form of theatre, where directives often come from above.
But now I feel the need to let myself go to the vision of my directors.
And this, for me, means only one thing: Trust.
The word of the sixth day.
Seventh and last day of work
This year the gods were kind to us: in their own way, they sent us a blessing for our artistic journey, because — incredible but true — this year in Bologna there wasn’t that humid and oppressive heat everyone talks about.Between warmth, coolness, and rain, we went through a full week, together.
We worked every day, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
And after 6 p.m.… everything happened:
– ice-cream marathons
– walks in the historic centre
– trips on the Bolognese hills
– evenings of shared dances
– parties at the French apartment, where we danced to Indian music
– and every morning, the shared battle with public transport.
All this, in its small chaos, brought us closer.
It helped us get to know each other better and, therefore, to work better together.
And as if by magic, on the last day, we all managed to catch the same bus to San Lazzaro.
A small collective achievement, to close a great week.
Today Michi has decided to share the warm-up leadership with some actors:
– Younes El Bouzari led us in a collective dance
– Sandra O’Malley in a choral song
– Doreen Ndagire proposed a listening game.
Then we did a work of theatrical patchwork, cleaning and synthesizing some of the scenes built together.
Finally, the word passed to Jonathan Meth, who told us about the next steps towards Paris: what awaits us, how we will organize, what we will need to prepare to face.
Several months will pass, but Vincent Mangado and Dominique Jambert have already anticipated that they will assign us tasks to carry out until our arrival in Paris.
And this will help us bridge the wait.
Waiting: the seventh and last keyword of this complex, rich, and stimulating week.
by Sanam Naderi (Teatro dell'Argine)
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