Chiara Guidi on Puerilia 2022: Theatre as a Tool for Childhood and Education

Chiara Guidi, co-founder of Societas, discusses the tenth edition of Puerilia, a festival in Cesena, Italy, running until April 2022. The initiative includes performances, teacher training courses, and meetings with authors and pedagogues such as Cesare Moreno, Alessandro Scoti, and Vito Matera. This year's theme explores the value of images as a cognitive tool and dialogue with young generations, and theatre as an exercise of gaze and voice. Guidi emphasizes the importance of the 'infans' gaze—a pre-linguistic perspective that challenges conventional theatre. She recounts how a six-month-old child on stage in Brussels during the Tragedia Endogonidia embarrassed the audience, reversing the gaze. Guidi critiques the Italian school system for neglecting the body and experience, advocating for theatre as a learning modality. She highlights the 'digital swarm' of images that become invisible, urging teachers to compose image montages. Cesare Moreno addresses school dropout in Naples, linking learning to emotional and bodily engagement. Guidi's workshops use the figure of Medusa to explore art history, architecture, nature, myth, and death. She reflects on the materiality of voice, noting how a single word like 'red' contains infinite shades, and how vocal timbre conveys meaning beyond words.