Theatre and Memory: Archives and Transmissibility

→Theatre and Memory: Archives and Transmissibility.
Online conversation in Italian with simultaneous translation into English.
Free participation, registration required at this link: https://bit.ly/41se6yL

It is said that the nature of theatre is ephemeral. But it is the performance that lasts a short time, not theatre. Theatre is made of traditions, conventions, institutions, habits and techniques that endure over time. An archive should be a living memory, a place of metamorphosis. And the memory of individual spectators takes the first step in that direction.

The fight against the ephemeral nature of theatre comprises faithfully protecting not only the documents and artifacts that remain but building an environment in which the essential dimension of the theatrical performance persists not by being fixed in a static recording, but through transformation.

How is it possible to preserve a theatrical memory? What are the ways to create an archive starting from the ‘remains’ of a live performance? How can theatre become a transmission of its own impalpable essence? Is it possible to create a ‘living archive’ with an ongoing travel between past, present and future?

This and other questions will be answered by Julia Varley and Eugenio Barba – who in Lecce have created, in the Bernardini Museum, the LAFLIS-Living Archive Floating Islands -, Mattea Fo – President of the Fo Rame Foundation -, Stefano Bertea – Director of the Franca Rame and Dario Fo Archives -, and Bianca Mastrominico – who at the Queen Margaret University of Edinburgh also dedicates herself to the “in between” spaces in the use of archives through digital technologies.

Fondazione Barba Varley’s online conversation on March 12, at 6:00 PM, on the theme of theatrical memory, is organised in collaboration with Fondazione Fo Rame.