Iphigenia at Aulis performed by A.i.d.a.s from Paris at the Palazzolo Acreide during the 13th Edition of the Youth Festival
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In 2012 the International Youth Festival of Classical Theatre will reach its 18th edition. Considering the type of event and the scale of organization involved, the Festival remains by far the most important youth theatre event worldwide. The Festival is launched, managed and financed by the National Institute of Ancient Drama Foundation Onlus thus achieving one of the foundation’s institutional goals: to raise the awareness of students and young people in general about the traditions of classical culture by giving them the opportunity to experience firsthand and at different levels “the making of theatre”; from translating and staging, to the watching and critical reflection of the Cycle of Classical Plays which have been performed in the Greek Theatre Syracuse since 1914.
Since it was inaugurated, the International Youth Festival of Classical Theatre has dramatically grown in size. In the last festival the numbers of institutions involved totaled 90 with an attendance of 3000 young people from Italy, Europe and countries in the Mediterranean. (To cite a just few: Tunisia, France, Spain, Hungary, Lithuania). Moreover, every season 30,000 students attend the classical performances. During the festival, the town of Palazzolo Acreide (some 40 km east of Syracuse) becomes one of the most visited archaeological sites in Sicily. The Youth Festival is an event which involves the students in the staging of classical greek-latin works in the ancient theatre of Palazzolo Acreide, after almost a year’s worth of studies, researches and trials. Whilst it was originally reserved to Senior Secondary school students, nowadays the Festival is also open to Middle school students as well as students studying Theatre at university and national academies of dramatic arts. During the festival the students are given the freedom to experiment with and adapt the works of ancient dramaturgy on a purely textual level, rewriting, and with their staging.
The International Youth Festival of Classical Theatre started in the “cavea” of the Greek Theatre of Akrai, sometime between the 26th and 31st May 1991. With the support of the Ministry of Tourism, Sport and Performing Arts, Regional Chamber for Cultural Heritage and the Province of Syracuse 25 groups of students from Italy and one from Europe brought about a happening which proved to be unrepeatable. Due to the positive profits of the event its creator and INDA’s Art Director of the day Professor Giusto Monaco realized the necessity to make the event a fixed date and activity on the Institution’s calendar.
Until the year 2000 the Festival took place every two years. After 2000 however the Youth Festival was adopted on an annual basis to coincide with the Cycle of Classical Plays, finally uniting the two events in a shared meritorious mission. In an extra-curricular context and far from being amateur, the young actors adapt the dialogues of the tragedies and comedies to make them their own and bring them to life on the ruins of Akrai in what was defined by Ettore Romagnoli (the first art-director of INDA) as “Il teatro del cielo” the Theatre of the sky. Recognizing the virtue of the theatre as a communal life experience, the Youth Festival offers fertile ground for the exchange and confrontation of ideas between the young people and an opportunity to integrate with neighboring European and Mediterranean countries. This exchange is guaranteed by INDA who involve students from different age and backgrounds, from Elementary school (each year about a thousand children from the age of 3 years crowd into the cave at the Greek Theatre to witness a lecture about one of the plays on show that season which is “adapted” tailored to their needs) to University students from Italy and abroad (the Foundation works in close partnership with Masters course and oversees numerous graduate theses).
The Festival is an example of a “consistent cultural project, carried out in an arc of limited time and in the same place” which is at the sole expense of the Foundation who are protagonists of western thought and the world of adolescents. Moreover, it is a cultural project which gives each school group the possibility to actively participate in the complex make up and machinery behind the classical performances in Syracuse, through a series of scheduled meetings with Directors and Interpreters who are involved in the ongoing season. These meetings often lead to impromptu thought provoking debates about contemporary themes amongst the young audience who are in search of deepening their knowledge. It was not therefore by chance that President Ciampi (2005), in his speech to the “Men of Italian theatre”, exemplified the educational role of the Festival. Nor is it a coincidence that the President Napolitano has also graced the event with his presence.
The INDA Foundation constantly aim towards a Festival which is increasing led by its young protagonists. The Festival works to bridge the existing gap between the Greek – Roman tragedies and comedies and the young, by offering a new field in which to experiment, a permanent laboratory and observatory of the emotions and conflicts, which is enriched by unpredictable suggestions, passionate arguments and the cultural exchange between the students.