SHOW FOR CHILDREN (4-8 years old)
Il piccolo Re dei Fiori (The Little Flower King) is a story about two young people who live opposite each other. So close and yet so far apart that their eyes have never met. One morning, however, she sees him, all melancholy, taking care of a small flower bed in front of their house, with that attention that is only given to the deepest desires. It is thus, observing him secretly, that begins to write for him, on little cards, the fairy tale that will lead them to their happy meeting.
Fairy tale for music, shadows and dance from The Little Flower King by KVĚTA PACOVSKÁ
A creation by VALERIO LONGO and FABRIZIO MONTECCHI
With Marcello Giovani and Isabella Minosi
Dramaturgy: Enrica Carini and Fabrizio Montecchi
Choreography: Valerio Longo
Direction and sets: Fabrizio Montecchi
Music: Paolo Codognola
Shapes: Nicoletta Garioni and Agnese Meroni (based on drawings by Květa Pacovská)
Costumes: Sara Bartesaghi Gallo and Nicoletta Garioni
Voices: Valeria Barreca and Tiziano Ferrari
Lights: Anna Adorno
Dramaturgy collaboration: Valerio Longo and Francesca Magnini
Realisation of sets and scenic objects: Giovanni Mutti, Nicoletta Garioni and Agnese Meroni
Production: Balletto di Roma, Teatro Gioco Vita
Live Streaming Premiere: 14 February 2021, Teatro Filodrammatici, Piacenza
Audience: from 4 to 8 years old
Duration: 50 minutes
Il piccolo Re dei Fiori is the text by Květa Pacovská around which two historical theatre and dance organisations have come together: Balletto di Roma, which in 2020 celebrated sixty years since its foundation, and Teatro Gioco Vita, which in 2021 celebrated its fiftieth anniversary and which, at the end of the 1970s, encountered shadow theatre, making an original contribution to the birth of children’s theatre. The project explores a form of contamination between languages such as dance, shadow and music, conceiving it expressly for children.
Il piccolo Re dei Fiori is a fairy tale. From the fairy tale there is the classic “Once upon a time” and also the unfailing “King” who, however, here is small and curious, lives alone, loves his garden and has pockets full of tulip bulbs. In the fairy tale there is also the theme of ‘waiting’, the King’s long wait before the flowers bloom, and also that of ‘lack’. Lack of what? The King does not know, but he does know that his tulips, though beautiful, cannot make him happy. So here is the ‘journey’ in search of what can fill his lack. A journey that is like a dream, on new routes unknown to the King, that lasts only a day and a night but seems to encompass the time of a lifetime.
In the morning light, the king hears a subtle voice coming from a newly opened tulip flower that repeats ‘I am here, I am here…’. In front of a little princess, the king, full of wonder, asks himself wonders: “Is it you whom I have been searching for so long?”.
As in any self-respecting fairy tale, there is no shortage of ‘and they all lived happily ever after’, which makes us think that, yes, it was indeed her that the King had so long desired.
Il piccolo Re dei Fiori is also a story about two young people who live opposite each other. So close and yet so far apart that their eyes have never met. One morning, however, she sees him, all melancholy, taking care of a small flowerbed in front of their house, with that attention that is only given to the deepest desires. It is thus, observing him surreptitiously, that she begins to write for him, on little cards, the fairy tale that will lead them to their happy reunion.
Il piccolo Re dei Fiori is a performance in which the theme of the search for happiness is rendered with lightness and poetry, thanks to a simple and essential plot and exuberant and imaginative imagery. With the counterpoint of a few but important words, the tale takes on stage form thanks to a rich musical fabric that accompanies and supports the spectacular shadow images of Teatro Gioco Vita, taken from the splendid illustrations by Květa Pacovská, and the expressive gestures of the two dancers from Balletto di Roma, the result of original choreography by Valerio Longo.
The power of a fairy tale is contained in its ability to be incredibly distant and at the same time close to our daily lives. What is required of us in order to access a fairy tale is to agree to make ourselves small, very small, to pass through magical and unexpected entrances, to know how to wait and, while waiting, to pay attention to every word, every gesture, every shadow in order to be amazed by the fairy tale itself. Thus it is also for us. In this almost archetypal fairy tale, a king, an enchanted garden, waiting, an unknown desire, a journey, a finding oneself in happiness, come alive in the shadows through music and dance, and allow everyone’s feelings to be revealed in it. Thus, as each fairy tale, word after word, animates the desires of those who hear it, so life, unexpectedly, leads them to fulfil them.
Balletto di Roma, founded in 1960 by Franca Bartolomei and Walter Zappolini, has always promoted the production and dissemination of Italian auteur dance in Europe and throughout the world, with a repertoire that today is attentive to innovation and research while maintaining a strong focus on the history and tradition that have made it famous. Over the years, the Roman theatre has seen a succession of prestigious collaborations and multiple creative souls, and the production activity has grown, both in terms of quantity and quality of the works staged during the seasons, with growing public approval. Starting in 2018, general director Luciano Carratoni brings a significant generational change to the top of the structure by appointing Francesca Magnini, a university lecturer at the Sapienza University in Rome, as artistic director. The new artistic figure strengthens the schemes and broadens the objectives of internationalisation by involving bodies and institutions: among the collaborations is also the one with the Department of History, Anthropology, Religions, Arts and Performing Arts of the Sapienza University of Rome.
Teatro Gioco Vita (artistic director Diego Maj) was founded in 1971 from the experience of theatrical animation and with its peculiar way of doing and experiencing theatre it made an original contribution to the birth of children’s theatre. It met shadow theatre at the end of the 1970s and developed a unique experience that earned it recognition and prestigious collaborations all over the world. The Shadow Company, with Fabrizio Montecchi and Nicoletta Garioni as artistic directors, is engaged not only in the production of performances but also in workshop activities and professional training. Teatro Gioco Vita combines its activities on the territory (Prose Season of the Municipal Theatre of Piacenza, theatre reviews, festivals and other cultural events, hospitality, workshops, training) with an increasingly international dimension that has led its shadow theatre performances to be performed not only in Europe, but also in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Japan, China, Israel, Taiwan, Turkey, Jordan and Senegal.
TICKETS
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