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Into the Italia-Malta transfrontalier cooperation programme - 19/20 May 2008 - two workshops coordinated by Collegio Universitario Arces, showed the documents of the case-study and anlysis ESTREL e MOTRIS.

ESTREL especially demonstrate as the lower propension to cooperation that is a character of both Sicilian and Maltese contexts, it is something that can get a turnover if the local experience of governance are able to lead the cooperation process, changing the nature of local government in itself and making it instrument of promotion in development policies and ethical business.

MOTRIS, a study which collect different contibutes, owes in itself a concept that have a sure appeal: this seems the “Cleopatra’s syndrome”.  The meaning of this formula, which is a quote by Jean Pierre Lozato-Giotart, it is related to the need of the voyage as something caused by the intimate emotianal desire to see somewhere and something that we have for longtime heared and dreamed.  So, in this “syndrome” we can find the anthropological base of the voyage as transformation of the knowlegdge into esperience.  And also here we find the relationship nature of the Mediterraneum, and especially of Sicile and Malta.  Both are places of legend and myth.  And it is properly this immaterial aura that put people into the desire of to know. 

As prof. Leonardo Urbani wrote in his introduction, the creative elaboration of the existent heritage is as the wave’s movement from which appear the deep man’s identity, where is all the history of the Western civilisation, from the most ancient roots to the Medieval Knights (where, looking with objective glasses, there’s not contrapposition between Middle East, but direct connection, as the North-European tradition perfectly knows).  Relation emerges in its anthropological nature as “gift paradygm” even if, in the contemporary market economy, this doesn’t means absence of economic contents but, sooner, as qualification of economic contents in the solidarity perspective.

It is important to note the relation between material and immaterial culture’s aspects.  The modern return to an echological idea of life and of the land’s cultuvation is waiting for the new meaning of their fulness.  The formidable work  “Organic Farming” done in Malta by Joseph Borg’s Ta’Zeppi, with its natural production (certificated in quality) is a good example and a possibility to share methology and competences.

The Olive Tree is the most real unifying character of Mediterranean Sea.  The sacred tree par excellence, peace and intelligence symbol, the Olive Tree is not just an alimentary product but the vehicle of common values that need to be shared.  The goal can be the agroenergetic and soustenable reinterpretation of land, with the full meaning of this symbolic images.

[Da.Cri]

International European Theatre Project which involves theatre companies from Spain, France, Deutschland, Ősterreich, Poland, Italy.

Conversation with Björn Potulski, Artistic Director and Project Manager. 

(By Davide Crimi)

Italian version

We meet Björn Potulski during the Sicilian round of the tour of the show Exodus, second step of a journey that began past week in Malta and which will continues with next steps in Wien, Munich and Warszawa.  We meet him in the hall of the theatre, and he seems to be a bit worried for the delay of the date, that becomes necessary after the tempest between Malta and Sicily.

Mr. Potulski, your project seems to be interesting and ambitious and because of the simply pattern and the linear conception, really this statement seems to be well founded, with further possibility to develop the core idea.  Would you explain us your concept of European Theatre Project?

Joint theatre project is really a theatre to build together. Our program got the sponsorship of several institution  (Landeshauptstadt München – Kulturrenferat, Federal Ministry for European and International Affaire, Ambassade de France a Malte, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Valletta, Consolato Generale di Germania a Napoli, Ambasada Niemiec Warszawa, Embajada de Espana, Armed Forces of Malta, Ősterreiches Hospiz, Drama Centre Malta, Polnisches Institut Wien, Strickland Foundation, Alliance Française de Malte), and this allow us to get in a concrete perspective the idea of an European Theatre.  So, Exodus, tell a story about life, through experience that comes form real people who are not actors but people who really lived the experience they tell on their skin and blood and bones.

This seems to be near the theatre conception that animated the idea to go beyond the barriers between actors and public, between difference in language and in culture.  There are two question in this argument: the first one is: are you working in symbolic meaning of gestures, according to the anthropological tradition in theatre applications?  The second one is: how do you apply the European motto “Unity in Diversity”?

About the last question, of course “Unity in Diversity” is a reference, a methodology for us..  You know, to work with different mentality, and culture, and languages, it takes a lot of energy.  But the outcome rewards the strains.  The other question is interesting.  At the moment, we are not playing with symbols, but I understand this could be important in a further step of our work.  At present time we are working up on facts.

Can we call this way to tell realism?  Have you been inspired by the realism or neo-realism season in cinema and theatre of  the ’50 and ’60?

Perhaps.  But in a non-volunteer manner. I’m not interested in an aesthetical meaning of realism.  I’m interested in real as a fact.  It could be realism, but not because of a literary quotation, but because of its intimate choice to tell fact of real life.  On stage there are four people that represent four different ethnical expression today living in Europe.  They tell their story with passion.  To communicate, of course we use subtitles, but they don’t read simply what you see on the wall: they say much more, and you discover that – even you don’t know their language, you understand over the words, you understand the meaning of what they are saying, because is true need to be hear.

The show is characterized also by a connective internet-link with a group (leaded by Maciej Adamczyk) who reports from Jerusalem.  They appear through the computer video and talk to us.  We would ask them about the strange line, the shifting of the wall.  After 1989, when the wall was destroyed in Berlin, it re-appeared in Jerusalem in 2003.

When we talk about European Theatre Project, says Björn, we have to think if we are talking about an Europe of institution or about an Europe of citizens.  The dichotomy is not but superficial, because the true fact is that institution doesn’t exist without citizens, as citizens can not reach their whole extension in freedom and emancipation without good work of institutions.  The rule is that institutions have to serve citizens, not the contrary.  About the shifting of the wall from Berlin to Jerusalem, as a German person, let me say that I’m for the break down of all walls, but history requires always wisdom, comprehension, awareness.

Further information about the show Exodus eand the project European Theatre: www.eurotheatre.eu.

 Björn Potulski, Artistic director of the Eurotheatre project

Organizzato da ARCI Catania e  SOUTH MEDIA, in collaborazione con Università di Catania, si è svolto ieri presso la sede di via S. Maddalena della Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature straniere, l’incontro con Aharon Shabtai, uno dei maggiori poeti contemporanei di lingua ebraica.

Il pretesto, dato dall’occasione dell’uscita in Italia del suo primo libro in italiano, “Politica” – tradotto dall’ebraico da Davide Mano – è stato un utilissimo grimaldello per ascoltare un punto di vista su Israele del tutto inconsueto: quello di Shabtai è infatti un Israele lontanissimo dal nazionalismo imperialista, estremamente distante dalla versione occidentale e coloniale che legittima la guerra come strumento necessario e inevitabile, e guarda piuttosto nella profondità delle cose, nell’essenza dei riferimenti al mondo concreto dell’essere, dove la guerra non ha posto perché il posto della guerra è sempre e soltanto la menzogna.

Per capire quanto sia un “discorso contro” occorrerà leggere il libro, le invettive contro la guerra, la disperazione perché l’intelligenza e il dialogo non prevalgono ma la brutalità, la realpolitik, la supremazia dello stato.  Eppure, malgrado tutto e sempre, la speranza.  Molte delle poesie politiche di Shabtai sono state pubblicate nel supplemento letterario settimanale del quotidiano israeliano Ha’aretz, provocando spesso lettere di sdegno all’editore e minacce di cancellare abbonamenti.

Due recensioni illuminano la figura di Shabtai rilevandone i tratti più marcati.  La prima, di Tariq Ali, dice: “In tempi bui, quando uno stato costringe il suo popolo alla sottomissione, può essere il momento del poeta che non sarà messo a tacere. Le poesie coraggiose di Shabtai perforano la torbida oscurità israeliana come un raggio laser. Scrive in ebraico, ma parla a nome degli oppressi di tutto il mondo.”  L’altra, di Eliot Weinberg: ”Non c’è nessuno come Shabtai, un erudito classicista, che scrive poesie piene di franchezza voltaica e rabbia politica. Questi versi di un patriota tradito dal suo stesso governo sono al tempo stesso attuali e senza tempo. Scritti per i giornali, essi saranno ricordati anche quando i loro referenti saranno da tempo dimenticati. Ma noi siamo abbandonati al presente, e questo è l’unico libro di poesia che dovrebbe essere letto ora.”

Aharon Shabtai è nato a Tel Aviv nel 1939 ed è stato membro del kibbutz Merchavia. Ha insegnato greco antico e teatro all’Università ebraica di Gerusalemme e all’Università di Tel Aviv. Molto stimate in Israele sono le sue versioni ebraiche dei tragici greci. 

Gli abbiamo chiesto se questa sua esposizione alla drammaturgia greca non gli abbia fatto maturare il senso dell’invetabilità del destino di Israele.  Ci ha risposto che non crede al destino.  Gli abbiamo domandato se l’Europa può fare qualcosa per il Medio Oriente.  Ha ribattuto che l’Europa ha il ruolo determinante.  Le istituzioni?  O i cittadini?  “Entrambi” ha risposto. 

Da parte nostra, facciamo quello che possiamo.  E quel che possiamo è alimentare l’attenzione per una diversa idea di vita, un ideale che, infine, è nel cuore di Israele: è l’emancipazione, l’affrancamento, la libertà dal limite e dal limite principale al progresso umano, che sono la guerra e la brutalità.

Gli abbiamo chiesto della poesia.  Parola scritta per arte. 

Ma avere tutte le risposte non significa ancora possederle.

E X O D U S
An European Theatre Project
Dedicated to the foundation of a veritable European Theatre

Exodus è un progetto  teatrale di cooperazione che coinvolge sei compagnie di realtà teatrali europee, Spagna, Francia, Germania, Austria, Polonia, Italia, che ha come obiettivo la produzione di spettacoli e manifestazioni  mantenendo un’unica identità. Exodus è il primo evento di presentazione di un’iniziativa finalizzata a realizzare un vero e proprio TEATRO EUROPEO.

Rappresentanti delle compagnie europee: Nélida Béjar (Spain) – Michelle Paris (Malta) – Werner Distler (Germany / Malta) – Raphael Protiwensky -Schenk (Austria) – Maciej Adamczyk (Poland) – Marion Sancellier (France) – Paola Greco (Italy) – Direttore artistico Björn Potulski (Malta / Germany)

 www.eurotheatre.eu