WOMEN AND RIGHTS
Interview with Marina Rippa
How did your commitment arise and when did you discover that theater can become a tool for reducing inequalities, for promoting rights?
Writing about passion for what I do. How it was born. How she grew up. How it continues to feed. And this leads back but also forward in time. I was born in Naples in 1961. And here again, alive.
Tell us your path, what pushed you to commit to this field?
In life they have always accompanied me: the love for dance, even if done by others, for music, and for poetry. Then came the stories with women. Involvement in school collectives. In '77, at the age of sixteen, the collection of signatures for abortion. And everything that concerns social intervention. With minors, the elderly, women, in the so-called “difficult” neighborhoods of my city. I owe a lot to my middle school physical education teacher. “Through movement you get where you want” he said. At the beginning we found this phrase obvious, but over time we understood that arriving did not refer to a place, but to a way. Thanks to her I chose to attend ISEF (Higher Institute of Physical Education) once I finished high school. And at ISEF I met Renata Facheris Ranucci. Her first lesson: a window into a new world... He welcomed us with the words from the volume “Towards a science of human movement” by Jean Le Boulch, our textbook: ”My position - wrote Le Boulch - is close to that of Wallon who defended the need for education through movement, the basis of which is represented by psychomotor education which applies to all subjects in development. The purpose of our action on man is the development of the person, as a condition of a better adaptation of behavior to socio-cultural norms and the acquisition of responsibility within the framework of social life”. I had never heard of movement education as personal education and it immediately captivated me. Prof. Ranucci taught a theoretical subject, Theory and methodology of motor activities, to the mixed group (male and female) and a practical subject, Rhythmic Gymnastics, for women only. His constant questioning, his focus on our learning... but also the severity, the expertise, the authority he expressed, immediately captivated me. I organized a different, creative, moving welcome with my classmates every time. We also opened our all-female group to the kids who followed his wonderful theoretical lessons with us. And this was strange, in a faculty that qualified separate teaching by sexes: female physical education, male physical education. Groups of students divided into teams by sex. And theoretical subjects all together... Long live the difference! Long live Renata Facheris Ranucci. At the end of the first month of the course I asked her to do her thesis with her. It was my first year at Isef, I was eighteen and a half years old. He looked at me smiling and said: - Listen. This is how things are: does a thesis have to be a minimum of 100 pages? Well you will make it 100 pages. Not one more. But they all have to make sense. - She allowed me to attend for free (in exchange for recording and transcribing the courses) the training in psychokinetics with Dr. Jean Le Boulch that she brought to Italy and I soon became the group's mascot. It was a very intense period but I felt it was my path. It didn't bother me to study double (since Isef was absolutely traditional), do training and matches (I played in Serie B at the time) and work to indulge myself in some whims... It was my way. And for the thesis Ranucci followed me step by step, I brought her one paragraph a week and the next time she brought it back to me with comments, or question marks, and some exclamation points to underline full adherence to what I wrote. I followed her even after ISEF, joining the research group that she chaired. And I worked with her until 1988, in an action research on psychomotor practice in the development of pre-school and school-age children in lower primary school and nursery school. Then, or rather together, the theater arrived. I attended some experimental theater experiences in the 80s and in 1992, together with a series of art and life companions we set up a theatrical research group called Libera Mente, in which I dealt, among many things, of theatrical pedagogy with groups of elderly people, adolescents and women. Then my “fixed” for women was born. From 1994 to 1998 I followed a group of teenagers in a school in Monte di Procida (in the province of Naples), from 1999 to 2006 a group of elderly women in the accommodation community “Cardinale Mimmi” of Naples, and from 2007 to today I have been curating the project THE SCENE OF WOMEN – theatrical itineraries with women in Forcella. I have a passion for hippos. I don't know when or why. I know I have many, of many different materials and shapes. I also love collecting shells, stones, dry leaves, old toys, three-dimensional books and many small things. I have a house full of “useless things”, as some say. But I love them and I can't get rid of them. I also keep the cards they write to me and fragments of wrapping papers. I keep workshop materials, drawings, writings, music, photos, videos, lists of objects and ideas. The memory of what we have gone through in the more or less long journeys of seminars or workshops. I have many notebooks, written in pencil, always. Which I don't delete. Maybe I chose the pencil because it doesn't leave marks on the paper, maybe because graphite has a light color, which belongs to me.
Don't expect brilliant phrases from me but the rough tongue of the leaves. The slow tongue of the moon and nights. Others will know. Others will understand. Others will rule the words. I only know phrases from the era and the trace that the wind leaves between the crops.
Bronislawa Wais "Papusza"
How do you define yourself as an activist?
I am someone who is there, who takes care of the people around and who has chosen care as a way of relating. And this is why I consider myself an activist.
What are the challenges you have encountered along the way?
I have struggled several times to make institutions understand the need for projects like the one I carry out. I often started over “all over again”. But I have never stopped designing and creating theatrical courses with the groups considered weakest. I say considered, because in my experience, however, they are the strongest groups, rooted in the present and demanding rights, even among the simplest, often denied to them.
What are the aspects that motivate you most in your commitment?
The impact on people's personal, relational and social lives, first and foremost. The beauty of the activity we have carried out (and are carrying out) and also its uniqueness lies in bringing together, including operators, women of different origins, ages and cultures, through the performing arts. And feel that this path has sown a seed on each one's quality of life.
What rights issues are closest to your heart and why? What are the most significant advances you have observed during your activism? For example what changes in Forcella women...
I think of freedom of expression as a fundamental right. Women who thought they had nothing to say and who through the art of theater managed to reach a level of awareness and self-determination, which allowed them to overcome small and/or large family and cultural overwhelms. Through work on bodily expression, vocal possibilities, images, composition, manual skills and acting theatre, women have learned (and we with them) to learn more about themselves, their expressive and creative abilities, and to give voice to their decision-making power. With the use of autobiographical writing and self-narration, one empirically intervenes on the awareness of oneself and others, stimulates the use of a language capable of making oneself understood, generates responsibility and favors the practice of active citizenship. These practices with women (mothers, grandmothers, daughters, grandchildren) create a very strong community, which has as its driving force and bond a great cultural stimulus: theatre.
What are your future goals?
Training female operators remains one of my main objectives in recent years. And then act on the present. Always. Carry out projects with women, starting from their communication drive and need, stepping aside a bit as operators, listening a lot, using methods that put the person at the centre. The theatre workshop is the place where one can live in freedom: one can feel through the senses, one can imagine thanks to one's own and others' ideas, one can listen, speak and communicate through movement and/or with speech, images, singing... By exploring the specific languages of theatre, narrative material is developed starting from the emotions and experiences of the participants. And so, without judgments or prejudices, different choices and generational experiences are discovered, fueling exchanges of stories, memories, also using images, objects, music, and anything else that can best serve to tell one's story.
How do you see the relationship between activism and civil commitment, and what are the most effective strategies for involving the community?
Activism and civil commitment are closely linked to me. The experience gained leads me to think that expressive and awareness work through a practice that is not daily are fundamental for community involvement. The artistic and educational activity I carry out with women, for example, has an impact on the whole family and, therefore, indirectly, on daily life in all its aspects. The awareness gained is a heritage for the entire community. Theatrical language, which is my field of action, manages to develop skills, bridge cultural distances, socialize people, form groups, integrate diversity and, last but not least, create the best conditions for a balanced growth of the person in the community in which he lives. Theater as food, utensil, as a place of self-discovery, of one's history, of one's dimension as a subject and of one's role within the world we inhabit. The history of recent years has clearly highlighted how the processes of social, urban and cultural transformation of our cities have been more easily adopted by the inhabitants and groups when the meaning of these changes could be metabolised by strong experiences of relationships and closeness.
How can we promote greater sensitivity towards the issues of equality and rights in schools?
For me, work on oneself, attention to others, discussions on prejudices and stereotypes, many linked to the cultural factor, are essential. Starting from everyday life, from habitual gestures at home - at school, at work, in free time, etc. (like: what is done and who does what) to realize that there are habits, patterns and conventions rooted in time. And whether we are all involved in it, whether we want it or not. Dare to carry out projects that work on the quality of life through art, also as a strong signal that it is not with repression that violence and abuse are fought, but with the awareness and practice of active citizenship.
How did you manage the emotional load that activism often entails?
I have a tactile memory. Of everyone (students, teachers, actors and actresses, operators, women with whom I have worked) I remember something about my body. There are those who are on my hands, those on my back, some behind the back of my head. Many on the legs, feet, arms, belly, chest, face... Thousands, I might say. And I remember the characteristics of many. And something about everyone. When we meet, even if some time has passed, it doesn't take much for me to trace facts, opportunities and words experienced together. How many people followed me, listened to me. How many people have I followed, listened to. And, as I began, I end with a quote that has always accompanied my work: "Be nothing more than the simple gesture of the listener." - The hollow gesture. Botho Strauss
