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Education and Culture
Culture 2000
THEATRE CULTURE IN PRISON IN EUROPE IN 2000
"TRAVEL DIARY FROM PLACES OF IMPRISONMENT"
The European Centre of Theatre in Prison was
created, after a long experience of artistic,
cultural and social work carried out with the
cultural association Ticvin Theatre Society, as
a social co-operative to produce theatrical events
in places of hardship, particularly in national
and European penal institutions.
Ten years of continuous work at San Vittore have
contributed in giving rise to a theatre company,
The Ship of Fools (La Nave dei Folli), at present
active both inside and outside the prison, important
meetings to exchange ideas and work, among which
we should note the 1st and 3rd Theatre and Prison
Convention, carried out with the contribution
of the EEC's cultural programme, Kaleidoscope,
meetings at San Vittore with masters of contemporary
theatre, including Giorgio Strehler and Eugenio
Barba, and tours abroad with ex-inmate actors.
In 2000, the Centre was recognised as a body
of Theatrical Promotion by the Ministry of Culture,
for the quality of its work, both on a productive
and pedagogic level, creating concrete possibilities
of reintroduction to work and society through
theatre.
After the 1st European Theatre and Prison Convention
(Milan 1994), the 2nd at Manchester (1996), the
3rd, again at Milan (1998), and the International
Festival of Theatre in Prison at Berlin (May 2000),
we realised how wide the differences are between
the formative experiences and the theatrical productions
produced inside European prisons. For this reason
we have planned a journey made up of meetings
of European artists who have each led different
experiences, and who have been working, for the
last ten years, for a culture of re-education
through theatre. These meetings will conduct the
pedagogic and artistic research necessary to understand
the different realities consolidated by theatre
and prison.
At the heart of our motivation is the individual,
the prisoner. We go beyond theatre, we work around
a collective realisation where every prisoner,
after a period of study, addresses his own energies
to a movement of creation that is usually stifled.
The European Centre of Theatre in Prison is creating
an Internet site to give the possibility of communication
and continuous visibility to the numerous artistic
and cultural projects proposed by the participating
countries.
Following the ends pursued in the European Convention
of Theatre and Prison, for the first time a pedagogic
project has been created whose added value stems
from the specific knowledge of the different contexts
and artistic perspectives of the companies which
for years have dedicated themselves to theatrical
work inside prisons, producing works, not for
entertainment, but for "change" through
the theatre of the institutions themselves.
The involvement of the European Community, as
that of the various Ministries of Justice and
of the penal institutions, will allow theatre
to be better-known, not only from an artistic
point of view, but also from a rehabilitative
point of view, working for a reintegration of
the ex-inmate actors into the society from which
they come.
The European Centre of Theatre in Prison is creating,
in collaboration with various universities both
in Italy and abroad, a multi-media Archive of
the different realities, a web-site, to make known
work and pedagogic projects using the theatrical
medium in prison in different countries. The Archive
will activate and promote new projects, paying
particular attention to the less developed regions
of Europe. The Archive will also be available
as a national point of reference for publications,
initiatives and bulletins regarding the reality
of Theatre and Prison. It will ask Theatre Groups
and Institutions to systematically send materials,
as well as creating a publication about meetings
and conventions taking place in Italy (and also
abroad, in the case of those of particular importance).
At the same time, it will give these possibility
of publishing the minutes of the conventions,
whenever the organisers themselves are unable
to do so. With the Archive, there will be an Audio-visual
Centre, and together they will permit the following:
the semi-professional production of videos; their
inclusion in the Archive and their use for study
and documentation; videos of theatre workshops
and of productions produced inside prisons. These
will also be available to the various cultural
institutes and universities interested.
As collaborators on the entire project, the European
Centre of Theatre in Prisons, can number the University
of Bologna - Department of Art, Music and Drama,
the University of Urbino - Faculty of Sociology
– Chair in History of the Theatre, and the
Borough of Milan School for Social Workers. The
director and scientific co-ordinator of the studies
and research promoted by the European Centre of
Theatre in Prisons will be Professor Claudio Meldolesi,
lecturer in Dramaturgy at the University of Bologna
– Department of Art, Music and Drama, Academician
of the Lincei Academy.
Donatella Massimilla, CETEC
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