Gregorio Amicuzi at Campo dei Giganti, June 7th, 2025

Introduction: The Beginning of the Journey
By Viviana Bovino

Laboratorio Internacional Residui Teatro (LIRT) is an organization professionally and systematically dedicated to stage creation. It was founded in Italy in 2000, and since 2007, following the decision to opt for a group emigration, it has established its base in the city of Madrid, Spain.

LIRT expresses its identity and poetics across five areas of intervention: the creation of live performances; research and writing; the development of international networks and encounters; the implementation of pedagogical projects aimed at people of all ages, origins, and health conditions; and the realization of projects in which art becomes a precious tool for intervention in territories, with and for the communities that coexist within them.

In most cases, these fields of action act as communicating vessels, feeding into one another. In certain special circumstances, the various areas converge into a single poetic action: this is the case with the project carried out in Italy, at the Campo dei Giganti (Field of Giants) in Villaggio Boncore (Nardò).

When we received the proposal from the project promoters to collaborate on the initiative, the invitation was to carry out an artistic residency; we were meant to address specifically the creators and educators of the local territory. However, as Ulderico Tramacere and Chiara Agagiù began to detail the proposal and answer our analytical questions, an image appeared before our eyes: many suspended “Bridges/PONTI.”

For more than ten years, together with Gregorio Amicuzi (Director of LIRT), we have developed a formative proposal capable of having a decisive impact on the community. We chose to call this proposal “Bridges: Theatre Meets the Community”; it is a model of artistic intervention that we improve and deepen year after year.

The proposal was born thanks to many years of work in the most diverse locations and the many people we have met: from the theaters of great capitals to hospitals; from refugee camps to schools, small villages, indigenous communities, or the most unjust peripheries of the world. Beyond direct experience, fundamental to us were our readings, encounters with masters, and the work carried out alongside Odin Teatret during the “Barters” (1) and the Festuge (2) in Holstebro.

This is how we created a “device” for artistic and pedagogical intervention involving both artists and communities. We center the work on a theme of interest to the host community and use theatrical tools to build a space in which to “offer,” receive, and share knowledge and creation. It is a collective ritual performed with careful dedication and a desire for transformation. “A journey to provide the answer to a great question. A journey that can only be made together!” (3)

This was the fundamental principle that secretly sustained the creation process we carried out in the Field of Giants and which we will recount in the following pages, detailing both the PONTI intervention model and the Salento experience.

Origins: Third Theatre and Group Theatre

Laboratorio Internacional Residui Teatro was born as a group theatre and is a child of that movement which, in the 1970s, began using theatre to pursue goals and needs that went beyond pure artistic production.

Third Theatre and group theatres—using a fitting expression by Eugenio Barba—decided to operate on the margins. As Master Barba says, there is a “First Theatre” which is institutional and official; a “Second Theatre,” that of research, experimentation, and the avant-garde; and then there is a “Third Theatre.”

This consists of people and groups who unite because they believe they can change the world through theatre or, more simply, they want to change themselves and the community surrounding them. These groups—the “Floating Islands,” as Eugenio Barba defined them—very active in Europe and Latin America, were initially linked to social and political movements, universities, and local collectives and associations.

These groups and individuals began taking theatre “outside of the theatre”—into schools, hospitals, prisons, refugee camps, and parks—in short, wherever theatre did not exist. L.I.R.T. is a child of those movements, a legitimate heir or not. It has considered itself Third Theatre since 2004, when Franco Ruffini, during an event in Rome marking the 40th anniversary of Odin Teatret, named it the “Roman group representing Third Theatre” after showing an excerpt of their performance to Eugenio Barba.

This was not our choice, but one in which we, with a young and ignorant stubbornness, immediately recognized and immersed ourselves. It is a path already trodden by those who preceded us, but one which we have deepened over the years and taken the responsibility to continue tracing. Knowing one is part of a journey tempers the ego that often accompanies young artists and, at the same time, diminishes the sense of loneliness when difficulties become overwhelming.

For years, LIRT has been taking theatre outside the theatre, building and working with and for communities. We organize group theatre encounters, such as “Territorios Teatrales Transitables” and “Tradición, Transmisión y Transgresión,” with the goal of creating the “bridges” that unite the floating islands—bridges that allow for exchange and the building of strong, lasting relationships between those groups that still inhabit the territories of community theatre.

As years and contexts change, community intervention remains necessary. Occupying and covering that space where formal education does not reach, and where institutions do not look or create programs, is necessary not only for the host community but also for the theatre groups passing through it.

In 2016, after years of experience in different parts of the world, we developed an “open model,” a “method made in action,” an intervention possibility to build “bridges” between theatrical practices and community needs. Thus was born “Bridges: Theatre Meets the Community.”

It is inspired by the “Cultural Barter” (4), a spontaneous invention of Odin Teatret that began in Sardinia in the 1970s—an exchange between a group performance and traditional songs and dances performed by the local people. This later became a fundamental practice in Odin’s work in their own territory of Holstebro, Denmark. The barter became the base for building the “Festuge,” a festival week enabling the encounter between international artists and the local community.

Bridges: Notes for a Methodology in Action

Bridges is a 10-day itinerant residential theatre workshop (90 hours of training). It stems from the idea of creating a bridge between theatre and the local community, offering two parallel spaces: one of intensive research and creation for the actor-dancer, and the other of interaction and creation with the local community.

On one hand, professional participants have the opportunity to follow a high-specialization workshop, deepening various techniques from European and Oriental theatrical traditions; on the other, they are enriched by new experiences through the invitation extended to the residents of the host territory to participate in training moments and take an active part in constructing a final participatory event—the fruit of the 10-day encounter. An event of and for the community.

Each year, we also invite a master of Oriental traditions to work on the principles of theatre anthropology and to relate disciplines and techniques from the East with those of our group theatre. This action is aimed specifically at the community of artists.

The significant difference is that we do not merely propose an artistic residency, but a human and community encounter. The “Oriental” artist represents a gateway of curiosity and fascination for the small local community and offers an original way to bring visibility to the event.

Which community is it for?

A village, a small town, or even a neighborhood in a large city can become a territory for encounter and exchange, transformation, and the construction of a new memory. A seed to transform the territory.

For “Bridges” to exist, it is necessary to find a person who acts as a “bridge,” a host (anfitrione). Usually, this is a theatre practitioner who participated in a previous edition of Bridges, but it can also be a former student or a local operator. In some cases, it is even a citizen who, as a spectator, imagines bringing that dream seen on stage to their own town where theatre is absent.

The initial meetings with the “bridge person” are fundamental. It is about communicating, storytelling, and sparking imagination. Above all, it is necessary to listen and ask questions as if conducting anthropological field research. One must find the “backbone” of the place and perceive its needs—understanding what exists and what the community represents, but also what is missing, and what they wish they had, so that it can become the theme of the exchange.

How is this encounter woven?

After meeting the “bridge person,” other meetings follow with local collectives, associations, and groups. Other “key people” are sought to help involve the population. Everyone is asked to participate with what they know how to do.

The word “theatre” is almost never used. Festival, event, evening, a moment together, an encounter, an exchange—these are the words we have learned to use over the years. Everyone can do something, and everyone has their own uniqueness. Bridges is the context where these individualities find space without being judged. We relate them to other specialties from the world of the arts, and both take on a new value. The territory where the encounter happens generates a new memory, and those “specialties” assume new meanings for the community. It is a transformative act—concrete, not theoretical.

Fieldwork

On the first day, when participants (actors and artists from various countries) finally arrive, we gather in a large circle with residents and local associations. A theme or a need has been chosen in previous meetings—a theme that represents the “backbone” or the DNA of the town.

In the Basque Country, for example, the theme was the “frontier,” involving the past, present, and future of the territory’s identity. In a small village in Brittany, we worked on “my home, the roots.”

During the preparation phase, participants work in the mornings guided by LIRT members. Afternoons are dedicated to creative work. Based on the theme, individual and collective scenes are built, which later form the basis for the final event. The theme is presented to the population and organized groups (neighborhood, cultural, or sports associations) so a first exchange can occur. The timing and nature of these exchanges are established based on interests and availability.

Contact with the community happens spontaneously, inhabiting public spaces and promoting intergenerational exchange through various artistic actions. We give importance to cultural barter, local traditions, and requests arising directly from the inhabitants. Furthermore, interested citizens are invited to afternoon sessions to practice theatrical exercises aimed at creating group cohesion and developing collective stage proposals.

The creative work culminates in a final event in the town, which can be itinerant or held in a specific area. Part of the process lies in the choice of spaces. These must be functional—allowing spectators to move between locations over short distances—but above all, they must be “necessary” for the narrative and dramaturgy of the show. We ask the “bridge person” to show us significant places that resonate in local memory. The choice is a vital activity: every place has a physical characteristic, but also a memory and a meaning for the locals.

What are the goals of the artistic work?

The thematic work of Bridges develops in a living dialogue with the host community. The intent is to identify a theme rooted in the “local” territory but capable of resonating “universally.” We want to generate spaces for reflection and ensure the dialogue becomes an opportunity for mutual enrichment for everyone: artist, spectator, cultural agent, or passerby. Thus, “our” Bridges naturally becomes “theirs.”

Specific objectives include:

• Offering participants high-level theatrical training.
• Making art a means of personal transformation and a fertile ground for the collective.
• Fostering a living exchange through performances, barters, and shared daily life.
• Promoting intercultural exchange between people from different parts of the world.
• Valuing the host locality by opening it to an international gaze.
• Transforming the encounter into a horizontal network of collaboration between people and local associations.

What is done with the participants in detail?

The workshop reflects on the processes of the actor/dancer, focusing on four axes:

1. The bridge between training and creation.
2. The bridge between different disciplines.
3. The bridge between Eastern and Western theatrical cultures.
4. The bridge between theatre and the community.

The encounter is developed through daily performative actions, visits to local points of interest, and the integration of as many local proposals as possible into the final performance. This final event, the fruit of intercultural proposal and common reflection, makes the created bridge visible to all.

(1) Gregorio Amicuzi describes the Barter below.
(2) The “festuge” is a large festival that Odin Teatret organizes in the city of Holstebro, Denmark. The festival brings together local and international artists and citizens and takes place throughout the city at all hours of the day.
(3) Quote from the script of the performance “Il Prezzo Della Libertà” (The Price of Freedom), LIRT 2025.
(4) “Cultural barter” is a method of exchange born in the 1970s during a project by the renowned Danish company Odin Teatret in Sardinia. The company’s actors showed their performance to a small Sardinian community. Afterward, the local community decided to thank the actors by performing traditional songs and dances from the area. This extraordinary episode has now become a practice used in community theatre by groups like LIRT who follow the Reciprocity Theatre method developed by Odin Teatret. LIRT is among the groups that in 2016 launched a European network of cultural entities using theatre as a tool for personal and community transformation.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.