Theatre play unveiled at L’arboreto

Theatre play unveiled at L’arboreto

The theatre play A Manual on Work and Happiness, written by Catalan author Pablo Gisbert and Portuguese company mala voadora, will be unveiled during a Public Reading scheduled for December 9 at L’arboreto – Teatro Dimora di Mondaino (Italy).

The event will gather the international partners of the project A Manual on Work and Happiness and it is open to the community of Mondaino, who will take an active role in the stage reading, to be directed by Jorge Andrade (mala voadora) and Fabio Biondi (L’arboreto).

The local community will read and perform extracts from the play. Jazz band MYO – Mondaino Young Orchestra will join the performance.

The play was originally written in Spanish during a Summer residency at L’arboreto – click here to watch the video.

After the first public presentation, the text will be the starting point for the artistic residences to be held on the first half of 2018 in the cities of Alcobaça, Montijo (Portugal), Patras (Greece) and Pergine (Italy). These residencies will generate four different performances involving the communities from the four local cities.

How did we get here?

The Public Reading marks the end of another phase of the European project A Manual on Work and Happiness. The project, which gathers partners from Portugal, Italy and Greece, kicked off at the beginning of 2017 with an international call for artists, inviting them to submit projects focused on the themes of work, laziness and happiness.

Some of those projects were subsequently selected and included in the programme of the project’s first public activity, the International Seminar on Work and Happiness (Pergine Spettacolo Aperto Festival – July 14-15). The seminar’s main event – a conference named Happiness Calling – gathered academics and artists in a session which was also broadcasted live. Audiences joined the debate by answering a tricky question: Is it work or is it laziness which will lead you to happiness?

Some of the topics approached during the seminar became food for thought for mala voadora and Pablo Gisbert, who then spent part of August writing a play in L’arboreto.

Simultaneously, the project launched its training-driven activities named Southern Coalition. Four sessions targeting cultural agents were held in Portugal, Italy and Greece. They aimed at strengthening the operational capacity of the agents from those three countries by debating and sharing good practices on themes like audience development, inclusion, accessibility and in the involvement of communities on cultural projects.

What’s next?

A Manual on Work and Happiness will continue in 2018 with four artistic residencies coordinated by mala voadora in Alcobaça, Montijo, Patras and Pergine, which will then generate four different performances starring members from the communities of those four cities.

Watch all the video reports done so far at the YouTube channel.

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