Artistic Profile

| Maria Federica Maestri | Francesco Pititto |

Lenz Rifrazioni | Biography

Büchner, Hölderlin, Lenz, Kleist, Rilke, Dostoevskij, Majakovskij, Shakespeare, Goethe, Grimm, Andersen, Calderón de la Barca, Genet, Ovidio: these are the authors who have been marking the monographical and longstanding projects of Lenz Rifrazioni since 1985. The experimental theatre company had dedicated a whole series of studies to Shakespeare and Goethe's Faust respectively.

The first project (1997-2000) ended up in Ham-let, which was then performed at the Festival dei Teatri d'Europa, directed by Luca Ronconi from the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, while a second one (2000-2002) rearranged the great fresco of Goethe's masterpiece in Urfaust, Faust I and Faust II.

The Grimm Project, instead, originated in 2001 from a dramatic fragment of Urfaust quoting the Grimm's fairytale Under the juniper. Cenerentola (Cinderella), Biancaneve (Snow White), Cappuccetto Rosso (Little Red Riding Hood) and Pollicino (Tom Thumb), visionary performances that faithfully revive the homonymous cult-stories of everyone's childhood, have been invited to Lille, Madrid, Olot, Vigo, Arles, Evry, Il Cairo.

A three-year project (2002-2006) in the name of Pedro Calderón de la Barca finally includes, among others, La vita é sogno (Life is a dream), Il magico prodigioso (The prodigious magician), and Il principe costante (The constant prince), presented in Spain at Almeria, Almagro, Burgos and Madrid.

In 2005 the staging of Scarpette Rosse (The red shoes) and La Sirenetta (Th little mermaid) by H.C. Andersen were carried out, part of Hans Christian Andersen 2005 Foundation's Celebrations and presented at the important Festival Cyl de Salamanca. After High surveillance by Jean Genet, in 2007 Lenz presents Radical Change a contemporary performative script from Ovidio’s Metamorphoses. Ten installations are created within the new artistic project drawing inspiration from by an equal number of Metamorphoses: Pyramus_Thisbe, Philemon_Baucis, Phoenix, Hecuba, Ceyx_Alcyone, Orpheus_Eurydice, Cyparissus, Echo_Narcissus, Daphne you must be my tree and Io.

Since 2000 Lenz Rifrazioni works on a project in collaboration with AUSL_ Mental Health Department with a group of ex long-term psysical patients of the Colorno Asylum: they recently performed Dantons Tod and Leonce und Lena by Georg Büchner. Leonce und Lena won in 2007 the National Prize for responsible communication Aretê. In 2008 Lenz Rifrazioni presents Consegnaci, bambina, i tuoi occhi, the very first dramatisation of Federico García Lorca’s Ballata di Cappuccetto Rosso. The production’s original music is composed by Robin Rimbaud / Scanner, electronic musician from London. In 2008 Lenz presents Chaos, a contemporary performative scipt form Book One of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Extreme and radical faithfulness to the text, which is dissected, translated and gradually adjusted to the scene, a long workshop with the actors, a solid ensemble including intellectively challenged subjects, an original work of scenic installation and movie creation define the contemporary poetic of Lenz Rifrazioni, achieved by putting on stage those great classics commonly thought to be unperformable because of their high level of linguistic or dramatic experimentalism.

Continuing his aesthetic and poetic route with an absolute rigour, Lenz expresses an artistic plan recognised as one of the most brilliant expressions of experimental theatre in Italy and Europe. Traduction, dramaturgy and imagoturgy are by  Francesco Pititto, who is  in charge of  all the stagings’s direction with Maria Federica Maestri.

Scenic installations and costumes are by Maria Federica Maestri, currently mentioned by critics for her "material dramaturgy" and for the system of visual signs that consitute a very original "paint-acted".
Original music is composed by Andrea Azzali, an experimental electronic musician. In 1997 Lenz Rifrazioni was awarded with the prize for theatre research (Premio per la Ricerca Teatrale) by the national association of critics (Associazione Nazionale Critici).

Since 1996 Lenz Rifrazioni has been in charge of the artistic and organizational direction of  the international festival Natura Dèi Teatri, that takes place in some historical, monumental and natural sceneries within the province of Parma. In 2005 Natura Dèi Teatri became member of IRIS, South European Association for Contemporary Creation. An articulated project, called Pratiche di Teatro, characterizes Lenz Rifrazioni also in the field of theatre training.
Pratiche di Teatro Sociale instead, is a complex set of workshops aimed at awakening theatre aptitude in intellectively differently challenged actors. The company is hosted in Lenz Teatro, a totally restructured 1000 m2 building of industrial origin with two halls, office-area, dressing-rooms and training lab.