All photographs © Argos

Cesena, Italy, December 2019

December 2019 was the date of the second experimentation, namely the participatory observation at the legendary ‘Teatro Comandini’, the premises of the internationally acclaimed Italian theatre company Societas [Raffaello Sanzio] in Cesena (IT). A group of ARGOS members (scholars, mediators, students, spectators and artists) were actively integrated in the creative process of La terra dei lombrichi [The land of the earthworms], a ‘tragedy for children’, freely inspired by Euripides’ Alcestis, directed by Chiara Guidi. Similarly to Alcestis, Chiara Guidi’s Terra revolves around the bipolar contrast of light versus darkness and deals with the sensitive issue of death.

The community of observers had the unique opportunity to experience a holistic creative process during all its stages, from its very start, i.e. the procedure of casting, training, rehearsals until its final artistic result, a complete theatrical production. Throughout the creative process, Chiara Guidi applied the ‘Metodo Errante’ [The Errant Method], an interactive approach that builds a relation of co-creation between actors, educators, and children. As a result of the Errant Method, children discovered the story through wandering and were able to change it with their own initiatives, decisions and interventions, while keeping the dramatic structure of the plot unaltered.

Additionally, the members of the ARGOS project studied the reception of the performance by different groups of children and were offered the opportunity to discuss aspects of the creative procedure with all the artistic collaborators (director, actors etc), as well as with the educators of the children-spectators. The research results will be communicated to the scholarly public in February 2020, through the participation of the ARGOS project to the forthcoming EASTAP conference in Bologna.