Article
Compagnia Attori & Cantori
On actress´ Claudia Contin role as Arlecchino
Claudia Contin was born in 1965. With an education in figurative arts and theatre, in 1988 Claudia Contin joined the Compagnia Attori & Cantori, directed by Ferruccio Merisi in Pordenone, Italy, as an actress. In the context of the Scuola Sperimentale dell’Attore, Claudia developed a strong competence in research on the Commedia dell´Arte, that has given her international fame, both as teacher and as performer (especially in the part of Arlecchino). Claudia also devotes herself with continuity to experimentation concerning the actor’s behaviour in connection with contemporary art, and moreover she is leading the Progetto Sciamano (Shaman Project), an educational and creative work-in-progress with disabled actors. She has published in different languages several scripts, essays and papers. At Roots in Transit Claudia is accompanied by Ferruccio Merisi.The Scuola Sperimentale dell´Attore was founded in 1990 by Claudia Contin and Ferruccio Merisi to support the theatre company Compagnia Attori & Cantori for projects of research, education and social engagement.
Claudia Contin felt a nearly physiological attraction for the force emanating from this Arlecchino. Her actor’s body was “driven” to wear his postures, angles and rhythms. Claudia felt the same basic kind of attraction towards the postures,angles and rhythms coming from the paintbrush of a painter like Egon Schiele, which he explained as a mutation of the vision of the self. This performance explores the meaning of those attractions and the relation between the two languages, in name of the need to renew a sense of difference, to improve knowledge and escape from being recognised.
Author: Odin Teatret
Works
Arlecchino and his Double
Exhibition / Installation,
2004
Free of the easy folklore that sometimes accompanies this figure, the general recollection of Arlecchino is clearly divided in two. There are historical documents,
transmitted by actors and authors; and there is an
imaginary memory, made up of a half, unfinished,
boundless myth part of an extraordinary fairy-tale and
endowed of a singular destiny. Similarly to Oedipus,
Prometeus and perhaps Hamlet too, in the imaginative
dimension Arlecchino is a figure that embodies deep dark human sides, even though he is free of inevitable tragedy.People say that his progenitors and prototypes used to make a carnival eruption into social reality, after a ritual time of retirement in the woods, a period of literal immersion in wildness.
Actor: Claudia Contin
Director: Ferruccio Merisi
Production: Scuola Sperimentale dell´Attore
Projects
This artist took part in the following project(s) organized/funded by the culturebase.net partner institutions.
Roots in Transit IV
Women´s International Theatre Festival and Meeting
(15 January 04 - 25 January 04)
