Pageant Puppetry Workshop in the Italian Alps

Create giant puppets and performing objects for a midsummer pageant and festival in collaboration with local residents of a remote village in the Italian Alps. Led by Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles (currently visiting artists in the Theater and Performance Program) participants create new works each year, drawing on the oral histories, agrarian rituals, folklore, dance, and ecology of this little-known corner of Occitan Italy. Since 2002, the festival and workshop have become an eagerly anticipated neo-tradition in the Maira Valley. For participants, the workshop serves as a laboratory to develop techniques for building processional art, as well as strategies for organizing grass-roots site-specific events in general. For the local villagers, the event has become a means to preserve and disseminate fragile narratives and to celebrate a regional culture with roots dating back 1000 years. 



Beyond the basic workshop in pageant-building, the week includes traditional step-dancing sessions, trips to nearby Medieval churches and cheese farms, and other unpredictable wonders. Daily gourmet meals are prepared with local produce, dairy, and meats. Families/children are welcome. No Italian language or puppetry experience required. The workshop is conducted in English, and we speak Italian and French as well.



Enrollment is limited. (early-bird tuition discounts available until March 1). Learn more at www.superiorconcept.org/Morinesio/



 

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For more information, call 845-758-9976, e-mail [email protected],
or visit https://www.superiorconcept.org/Morinesio/.

Location: Morinesio, Italy