14.06.2025/8:30 PM
Come foglie, come vento, come morbidi pani (Like leaves, like wind, likesSoft breads) it reinterprets the life of St Francis in an imaginary form, bringing back to the fore the relevance of his message of poverty, simplicity and wonder. The story takes the form of an initiatory journey, punctuated by real and imagined encounters. He thus encounters “blessed ignorance”, understood as the ability to look at the world with wonder, and with each encounter Francis becomes closer to the earth and its creatures. On stage, Catalano constructs a poetic narrative made up of images and silences. The language, at times childlike and onomatopoeic, restores an original view of things. What emerges is a portrait of Francis as a storyteller, in love with the world, capable of recognising the sacredness of life in every creature, inviting the audience to rediscover a light-hearted and wonder-filled view of the world.
The show is accompanied by the installation La messa e i presepi di San Francesco (The Mass and the Nativity Scenes of St Francis), a “Franciscan” table set with bowls and natural elements, portable museums displaying some of nature's small but great wonders.
Antonio Catalano born in 1950, is an artist, author and actor who has been active throughout his life in experimental theatre and the performing arts. After years on the Italian stage, he founded the theatre company Casa degli Alfieri together with Maurizio Agostinetto, Luciano Nattino and Lorenza Zambon—an organisation dedicated to artistic research, based in the house-theatre of the same name in the heart of Monferrato. Since 1999 he has been developing Universi Sensibili (Sensitive Universes), an extensive trajectory of installations and interactive environments inaugurated with Armadi sensibili (Sensitive Wardrobes) at the Venice Biennale. He has created performances, large-scale scenographic environments and exhibition projects presented in Italy and abroad, collaborating with major cultural institutions. Alongside this, he develops the poetic-pedagogical project Pedagogia Povera or della meraviglia (Poor Pedagogy or Pedagogy of Wonder), now included among INDIRE’s Educational Avant-Gardes and part of the PNRR Scuola Futura training programmes. He writes and publishes short stories, poems and illustrated texts, accompanying his scenic practice with an ongoing narrative and educational research.
A journey into the aura of key practices and figures of spirituality and performance art between body, gesture and vision.
