Project title
Description of initiative
Il Cantiere Teatrale - Sotto il Segno del Cancro is a project in Social and Community Theater and Medical Humanities in Oncology, conducted from 2006 to 2009 by the European Popular Theater and the Master in Social and Community Theater | United with the support of the Oncology Network of Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta and the Piedmont Region. The work first developed within the San Giovanni Antica Sede cancer hospital in Turin and then extended to various hospitals and health centers in the city of Turin. The project received the High Patronage of the Municipality of Turin and the Piedmont Region and the Italian Theater Organization, and was appreciated, among others, by Umberto Veronesi. Project questions and objectives: The experience of treatment and dying today is almost entirely delegated to the medical health approach. Hospitals are islands in the city. Can the theater enter it and become a vehicle for human and social participation? Does the condition of those who experience the disease as a patient or as a caregiver contain a look at life that affects each of us? Is it possible to re-establish an overall dramaturgy of dying?
Further information on the initiative
Themes: Culture and...
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Cultural field
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Results, benefits, impact and lessons learnt
The work was the first in a series of Social and Community Theater projects promoted by the Master in TSC and today by the SCT Center | United and gave birth to a specific sector of research and intervention "Art and Healthcare". From an artistic point of view, the challenge was to tell in a clear and engaging way what life is like from the point of view of those who experience the disease or treatment, both those who belong to the hospital and ordinary citizens. In this perspective, the project has: 1) involved both in the creative process and in the staging and as an audience, not only patients and carers but also secondary school students, university students, neighborhood shopkeepers, numerous local associations and institutions, individual citizens, informal groups and local networks, various scout groups, territorial voluntary networks, the University; 2) created different theatrical and communicative formats: theatrical event, stage show, community party, film.