Giuliano Scabia, Italian theatre artist and poet, dies at 86

Giuliano Scabia, a multifaceted Italian artist known for his poetic theatre, writing, and pedagogy, died on May 21, 2021, in Florence. His career spanned from the early 1960s into the 21st century, blending action and reflection. Scabia's work was characterized by a poetic dimension that transformed everyday life into art, using diverse forms such as storytelling, puppetry, and performance in unconventional spaces like barns, streets, and factories. He created giant puppets, including the famous Marco Cavallo, a blue papier-mâché horse built with patients at the psychiatric hospital in Trieste directed by Franco Basaglia. This project contributed to the deinstitutionalization movement and the Basaglia Law. Scabia's theatre vagante (wandering theatre) traversed Italy, engaging communities in collective creations inspired by Greek myths, oral traditions, and dialects. He taught dramaturgy at the DAMS program and was involved in activist projects, such as a theatre-journal on the Watergate scandal in Bologna. His works include the novel cycle Nane Oca (1992, 2019) and Lorenzo e Cecilia (2000). Scabia viewed poetry as oral and generative, creating 'the world next door'—a space of joy and imagination. He continued performing even during his illness, embodying lightness and gentleness.