Tag Archives: rites

The language of the marketplace

A street vendor starts to call out his products in the square. The peddler in the booth beside him starts to yell out his products even louder in order to be heard and get anything sold. It works well. A … Read the rest of this entry

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Grammelot

The onomatopoetic, language mimicking, voice illustrating, sound that Dario Fo calls Grammelot was born in France when the Commedia dell’Arte actors where antagonized by the church in Italy during the counterreformation. They turned to Europe instead, but not only to … Read the rest of this entry

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The roots to all western popular comedy

I see Commedia dell’Arte as the roots to all western popular comedy. There are naturally roots to Commedia dell’Arte as well, but if we see it as the first professional form of theatre in Europe and if we consider that … Read the rest of this entry

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The Stage

Traditionally a Commedia dell’Arte stage was used to be a banco, made of wood, about two meters tall and not much bigger than a horse driven cart, about 3 x 4 meters. It usually had a simple backdrop and where … Read the rest of this entry

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Mime as a discipline in Commedia dell’Arte

All disciplines are not equally easy to use in Commedia dell’Arte. As an example on a problematic discipline we can look at mime or rather mimed objects. All objects on stage should be real. If we start to mime object … Read the rest of this entry

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Music as a discipline in Commedia dell’Arte

The music is off course the most central of all disciplines in Commedia dell’Arte. It is there to heighten the performance and it helps up the atmosphere of feast that is so characteristic in Commedia dell’Arte. I the very first … Read the rest of this entry

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Disciplines in Commedia dell’Arte

Commedia dell’Arte is sprung from a time long before circus and theatre were divided as separate genres, when all sorts of stage disciplines could be played on the same stage without one having to be better or more refined than … Read the rest of this entry

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Improvisation in Commedia dell’Arte (Part 3)

Much of the art in playing Commedia dell’Arte has to do with being constantly on the alert, always ready to jump in to the action or leave space for another mask. This does not just apply when we are on … Read the rest of this entry

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Improvisation in Commedia dell’Arte (Part 1)

How much in a Commedia dell’Arte show during the renaissance that was improvised is something we will never know. What we know is that a lot was written down: lazzi, burle, some monologues and dialogs, battute, concetti and we can … Read the rest of this entry

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Sexfiaskon och en stol (Sex/six-failures and a chair)

Text and directing – Micke Klingvall Zanni – Yosefin Bouhler Pantalone – Per Mollan Flavio – Mårten Gunnarsson Flavia – Malin Andersson Capitano – Axel Boberg Signora – Manuela Bjelke Click here to see a trailer of Sexfiaskon och en Stol. This was a fall … Read the rest of this entry

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