Campsirago Residenza has always had a strong focus on education, right from ScarlattineTeatro’s earliest efforts. For Campsirago Residenza education means first and foremost sharing theatre as and inclusive instrument of personal discovery and a means of exploring the world. Ultimately, it is all about experiencing with others.

Right from Aeschylus or Shakespeare, theatre has always had a vital role to play in the development of humankind due to the way in which it can put on stage all the players involved in a conflict, each with their own point of view, afterthoughts, and moment in the limelight. Theatre is a powerful tool for communicating experience inter-culturally through relationship dynamics and the validation of differences. Theatre, from the Greek theatron (literally the place of beholding), can rely on many different points of view due to the way it involves nature, the community and the context in which it takes place, as well as the actors and spectators. Theatre is made of deep considerations, enjoyment, relationships, rhythm and energy, allegorical transformation, artistic creation, wonder and vision.

We have been developing our workshops for over twenty years, informed by our long experience with theatrical education on all levels. We use these activities to work on positive group identity, on the discovery of each person’s performing potential and on the holistic relationship with the world around us.

We offer multidisciplinary art and theatre courses in academies, schools, nurseries and libraries, as well as higher education seminars at a professional level, yearly theatre courses in our yurt, intensive theatre familiarization courses for teenagers and also dramatic reading workshops for adults and children. As well as all of this, every year we also host workshops organised with international institutions.

These activities are run by our companies, each of which has its own areas of particular expertise. We also rely on the services of the professionals we invite, which allows us to learn from national and international experts. This is part of our drive to make the residency a crossroads of human and artistic experiences.

Higher Education

Campsirago Residenza regularly organises higher education seminars and hosts internationally famous artists and teachers, including, over the past few years, Renata Palminiello, Sista Bramini and Janet Smith from the Scottish Dance Theatre.

During 2019 Campsirago Residenza organised intensive higher education workshops for theatre, dance and performing art professionals. These residential seminars on theatre in the landscape were led by the Pleiadi collective.

Esperidi 2020 – Esperidi on the moon, included two such workshops: “Asanisimasa”, a puppet theatre workshop run by Marco Ferro of Riserva Canini and “Ri-orientarsi”, a creation and motion in nature workshop run by Cinzia de Lorenzi.

Education in Schools

Campsirago Residenza offers multiple courses for schools of all levels, with various subjects, types of teaching and intended audience. We do this because we believe in the primary importance of the theatrical experience.

Doing theatre means working on relationships within the group by welcoming each member’s individual knowledge and experience, which will ensure the group can achieve the best possible results. Theatre then becomes a moment of sharing and discussion which stimulates the imagination, develops bodily consciousness, improves communication, and teaches to name and recognise emotions and then reproduce them in a game of fiction. Through improvisation, dance and movement through space, we seek expressive gestures which reawaken sensory perceptions and develop the imagination.

Our courses for schools are carefully designed and we always make sure to include the teachers in the process. We design our courses suit the needs of the various groups we work with. In primary and secondary schools, the workshops explore three main objectives: reading and acting, the body as vehicle for emotion, and the theatre as a place of sharing and community creation.

As well as these school-based workshops, we also organise intensive theatre workshops for teenagers as part of the residency programme and also hold teaching days which focus on the relationship between theatre, landscape and nature. Often our courses end with a final event in which the students’ work is put on stage.

For nursery schools we offer themed workshops exploring emotions, contact and materials. These form a vital part of our process for writing new shows for children: a long series of workshops in nurseries and in primary schools is an essential preparatory stage. The ideas we collect from this work are the kernel around which our children’s shows are built. This experience allows us to collect images, sounds and emotions, while allowing the children to participate in an artistic process which transforms a heuristic game into aesthetic material.

Inclusive theatre

In the vast field of theatre education, ScarlattineTeatro’s focus is creating community theatre projects through intergenerational workshops and projects based on social interaction. These seek to promote the meeting of different people in an inclusive atmosphere with the aim of sharing experiences, understanding others, enhancing self-perception, increasing confidence each person’s artistic potential and improving relationship and communication skills.

Through a multidisciplinary language made of words, gestures, materials, music, thoughts and emotions, the relational and emotional value of the theatre experience can be discovered, all in an atmosphere where differences are appreciated.

This poetical and multifaceted approach leaves everyday routine behind, building relationships among the participants and creating well-being. Participants discover new ways of expressing themselves, of communicating, of relating to others and of integrating in a group. These workshop experiences are an essential part of ScarlattineTeatro’s artistic development.

In 2019 two main projects were undertaken: “Bellezza in bicicletta” with the youths of the Artimedia cooperative’s CSE and “Per terra il cielo” with Alzheimer’s patients from the Honegger foundation’s rest home and a group of children from the nursery in Albino.

Reading education

For over ten years ScarlattineTeatro has organised educational dramatic reading workshops for adults, teenagers and children in libraries and schools. This is one of the company’s most important projects, which has lead to the formation of groups of volunteer readers, who regularly read both for their enjoyment and for the whole community.

Community education

Since 2013 ScarlattineTeatro and Campsirago residenza have lead a community education project in the Tana di Bestetto park in Colle Brianza. The objective of these efforts is to work with the local community through courses, seminaries, family events and reading groups.