From the Big Bang to the Homo Stupidens

A Tribute to the Theater Pedagogy of Pierre Byland and Mareike Snitker

By and with Enrico Ferretti and Gerardo Mele 

In Italian, French, and German

Outside Perspective: Tiziana Arnaboldi and Grazia Roncaglia

Production: Compagnia Tiziana Arnaboldi

Franz and Gustavo, selected by an anthropologist as emblematic representatives of Homo sapiens from the North and the South, illustrate the Great Notebook of Human History. The result is a sparkling, comic, and burlesque reflection on our everyday behaviors; an ironic and frenetic journey through geological eras and evolutionary stages up to the zenith—or perhaps the decline—of Homo sapiens.

Drawing on the unique qualities and versatility of the two performers, this production brings to the fore the codes of a theatricality and dramaturgy in which the actor’s body takes center stage. Physical presence, the body’s adherence to the text, the relationship between the animate and the inanimate, and a delicate approach to life and death all contribute to the staging of this work, which races—not without a few stumbles—along the timeline. The connection—both scientific and burlesque—to anthropology, existentialism, and Dadaism allows the two protagonists of this play to explore human nature armed with great “stupidity,” understood in its original sense of astonishment, amazement, and wonder.

Enrico Ferretti

Actor, researcher, and teacher, he is active in both the artistic and educational fields. He trained artistically at the Jacques Lecoq Theater School in Paris, where he met Pierre Byland, with whom he began an intense artistic collaboration. He is a co-founder of the Tiziana Arnaboldi Dance-Theater Company, with which he has participated as an actor, co-author, or artistic collaborator in some twenty productions, performed in many European cities.

Gerardo Mele

Dancer, actor, and teacher. He collaborates with the Les fusains company directed by Pierre Byland, serving as his assistant and co-author on “Solo Sei” (2002), “Cadavre Exquis” (2007), and “Masterklass” (2011). A dancer since 1976, he has worked with various companies and, since 1990, has practiced “sensitive dance,” thus embarking on a personal journey of exploration: “the sensitive body,” which he has been teaching since 1998. Since 2013, he has been leading intensive workshops on “sensitive clowning.”

For all ages | 75 min. | In Italian, French, and German