Description

"Once upon a time, one day, a theatre born in 1727 was occupied to implement a “cultural revolt”.

On June 14th, the day after Italian citizens, voting in a referendum, said a decisive no to water privatisation, nuclear development and legal immunity for acting government officials, a wide group of protestors seized the Teatro Valle (www.teatrovalleoccupato.it), which could have been turned over to be privatized. Rome’s oldest theatre, one of many cultural institutions facing difficulties. The day after the victory of the referendum for water as a common good, voted by 27 millions of italians, on the ancient façade of the theatre designed by Valadier, appeared a long piece of cloth with written on: LIKE WATER, LIKE AIR, LET’S RECLAIM CULTURE!

The invasion of the Valley becomes a device with art and politics, poetics and different urgencies gathered around the Rome's oldest theatre still operating: the theater of Mozart and Rossini, the first of "Six Characters" by Pirandello. Structure that was intended to have an uncertain future and risked to be become private.

So a community gives life to a space by creating a constituent power through the vehicle of a Foundation, a non hierarchical but as usual horizontal rhizome. Where to take the decisions are the assemblies and institutionalize the link between culture, art and political practices. Reigns grassroots participation. The valley becomes a model, arise in other cities of similar experiences in Italy.

After six months practicing in the fight, with raid in theaters and symbolic occupations, the workers in the arts and culture occupied Teatro Valle. Workers in Film production, theater, dance, technicians, operators, employers, precarious and intermittent for several months waged a direct and self-organized fight for their rights and against the cuts.

They have occupied the Teatro Valle to save it from an uncertain future. The occupiers have issued an appeal signed by over 8000 people. Citizens, artists, professionals, workers, people of Italian and international culture, gave life to the Teatro Valle, that has emerged as a venue with a strong symbolic value at a national level, a place to share ideas and experiences, a place to elaborate together a political and critical thought, according to a choice of active citizenship.

They/We are interested in commons, mutualism, co-working and we would like to base all our actions on the quality of relationships. We believe in a world built on bottom up quality processes and we are very interested at international collaborations."

Details

MISSION AND VISION

"Our goal is to transform the Teatro Valle in a Foundation of commons.

The Foundation Teatro Valle Commons is an economic and juridic alternative model based on the selfgovernment of workers of art and culture and citizens and on a direct democratic system. The principal vocation of the theatre is to be always open and alive and to offer a wide permanent education for professionals and for the citizens as a contemporary agora.

Regarding the artistic vocation of Teatro Valle we think it should be a center devoted to the italian contemporary playwrighting and stage writings.

After the 14th of june the defensive attitude transformed itself in a performative constituent act: public assemblies, self education processes, a multidisciplinary approach.

Internationally known and appreciated jurists as Ugo Mattei and Stefano Rodotà contributed to write the Statute of the Fondazione Teatro Valle Bene Comune.

The occupants are aware of the present economical and financial difficulties of the country and, precisely for this reason, they believe that the situation should be faced not with a blind policy of cuts, but with forward-looking projects aiming to reduce waste and to enhance the artistic talents which are a key resource for the country.

A renewed future for Teatro Valle would be a major starting point for everybody, ushering a new season of Italian cultural policy resetting art, knowledge and creativity as center of the social system. Radical reforms capable of ensuring efficiency and autonomy in the public management, would allow virtuous actions of the privates and would restore dignity to the professionals of this industry with specific laws recognising their rights.

We are imagining and practicing new forms of ethical management able to provide the possibility of a plural artistic direction with the guarantee of a turn-over; an “ecological” principle ensuring a balanced distribution of resources between small and large productions, for training and hospitality; fairness in pay - reduction of the gap between the minimum and maximum-, a price policy accessible and progressive; boards for independent monitoring, transparency and readability of financial statements published on the web, developing a code of ethics, as model for all theaters and companies.

WHAT DO WE DO and done

We have set up artistic residencies in which we asked the artists to invent new forms of education, to open up for the audiences the creative processes, inviting other artists, contaminating languages. The theatre promotes forms of encounter between the arts and creates opportunities for interdisciplinary ensembles through assemblies, informal meetings and through the international networks built in these recent months of activity.

We organize: plays and performances, festivals of independent theatre in and outside the theatre, children workshops, we reflect together on the cultural politics, projections of independent movie which otherwise wouldn’t find any distribution.

Every day from the 14th of June 2011 we kept the theatre open, organized the cultural program, promoted meetings and co working sessions with many theatrical, academic and scientific institutions on a national and international level, supported and enhanced the fights for commons on a national spread level.

NATIONAL RELATIONS: THE NETWORK

After the Cinema Palazzo and the Valle, the occupy culture movement increased and became contagious, il Teatro Marinoni, the Coppola Theatre of Catania, the Garibaldi Theatre, the collective of the Balena of Naples with the Asilo della creatività e della conoscenza. Macao in Milan and the already existing S.A.L.E. Docks in Venice, are all experimenting innovative models of daily bottom up productions.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

We had the support of prestigious European institutions such as the union of the Greek artists, the Schaubühne Berlin, the Royal Court in London, the Theatre du Soleil Arianne Mnouchkine, the Theatres of Europe, the Berlin Biennale.

We are working continuously with cultural institutes in Italy such as the French Academy of Villa Medici and the Swiss Institute of Culture, we are collaborating with, among the others, with the Goethe Institut and we are part of international networks such as European Alternatives."

Status

"After the occupations of Cinema Palazzo and the Teatro Valle, the occupy culture movement increased and became contagious, il Teatro Marinoni, the Coppola Theatre of Catania, the Garibaldi Theatre, the collective of the Balena of Naples with the Asilo della creatività e della conoscenza. Macao in Milan and the already existing S.A.L.E. Docks in Venice, are all experimenting innovative models of daily bottom up productions."

Teatro Valle Occupato

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