VIULIFE - Ciao: East of East

Fall 2008 Semester Creative Project

Ciao: East of East

The VIDEO based on the experience of the workshop is available on youtube.

a workshop on theatre and interculture for students directed by Corrado Veneziano
in collaboration with Cutamac of the Università di Bari, Shylock Centro Universitario Teatrale di Venezia and Venice International University in the context of Mediterraneo. International Theater Laboratoty of La Biennale di Venezia.

November 7 at 5 p.m. – public presentation of the workshop
Free entrance, previous reservation required

'Ciao' is the most informal greeting that exists in the Italian language, and its etymology is clear and well-known. Deriving from the Venetian word 's-ciao' indicating the word for slave 'schiavo' ("I am so close to you that I feel I am your slave"), the word in fact refers to the word 'slavo' and testifies to the first important sale of Slavic slaves, which took place in Germany during the X and XI centuries. An affectionate word that as we see has been absorbed and smoothed into a more cynical and hierarchical dimension: it has radically transformed its antique content.

The example of 'ciao' is casual because, every day and in every circumstance, nouns and names, adjectives and verbs (and adverbs, locutions, interjections) betray loans and contaminations, evolutions of meaning and significance, that a more careful reading can highlight and bring out. In its stratifications, the linguistic analysis can relate historical events, cultural correspondences and interactions between territories, serving as a litmus test for political, economic, sociological, artistic understanding.

The workshop Ciao: East of East is based on this premise. And is committed to emphasize the opportunities, proving how the most partial and marginal written traces (a train receipt, an advertisement, the bureaucratic data on an identity card, a postcard), related to others more elaborate and refined (a book, a poetry, a philosophical essay) are opportunities for understanding and exploration, a knowledge of one's self and the other, questioning stereotypes and prejudices, and in parallel, the demand for emancipation and democracy.
Corrado Veneziano

Ciao: East of East gathers the qualities and specificities of the two different contexts: it will feature classes in acting, voice, diction, improvisation and simultaneously, explore the cultures that revolve around the territories of the former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia), Kosovo and Albania.
Literary excerpts, scripts, plays, as well as diaries, papers, daily and domestic correspondence –all from the Slavic and Balkan areas– will become the object of research and experimentation in writing drama.

Corrado Veneziano is a professor and author of essays who applies research and teaching in the field of languages to acting and directing at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica "Silvio D'Amico"; he is also a professor of Sociology of Communications at the Università dell'Aquila.