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by and with Sandra Cavallini

November 17, 9 pm

SOLFERINO RED

when the earth was dyed with the blood of forty thousand and more young soldiers

and how the women of Castiglione made no distinctions in offering water, bandages and broth

The story of the historic battle of San Martino and Solferino in 1859, which saw, among the dust of the nineteenth century, the birth of the Red Cross and humanitarian interventions, leads us in the midst of still current conflicts between otherness and belonging, between the idea of nation and supra-nationality of human rights.

The historical premises, the evocation of events and places and the dynamics of war, are entrusted to the chorus of patriotic songs and a disenchanted narration, between romantic tones and enthusiasm of the first hour, up to the paroxysm of the Radetzky March. The following of the events that lead to the theater of battle is mitigated by a naively epic expressiveness, which recalls images and languages of nineteenth-century propaganda: vintage postcards, caricatured tones for emperors and princesses, implications of the beautiful Gigogin , puppet heads and lead soldiers.

At the moment of the real impact of the firefight, the gait becomes so painful and astonished that it is suspended from time for a wide with contemporary tones. The light, imperceptibly concentrating, gives way to the dark where " the dust was so thick that one could hardly distinguish one from the other ".

It is the pervasive concreteness of the testimonies of the time from the extracts of letters and diaries that brings us closer to the paradoxes of historical conflicts, while the incipit, inspired by contemporary poetics, and the ending  they act as a bridge to current human affairs.
The progress of the battle, between smoke and dust, flows before the eyes of the character of the Viv Bandiera , who tells us of the female presence in almost all the armed bodies of the time. These women, mostly in charge of commissions, also take care of the first transport of the injured with the supplied wagon.
Faced with the sufferings of the soldiers abandoned on the ground / theater of battle, the vivandier evoked in the show embodies, and absolves as best she can, that restorative tension which, crossing borders and flags, animated the women of Castiglion delle Stiviere .
The fundamental lines are dedicated to them, to these women, which still maintain the TUTTI FRATELLI passage in Italian, in the well-known publication by Henry Dunant
Un Souvenir de Solferino .
The publication was sent to the sovereigns of Europe with the desire to find a supranational agreement. The International Red Cross is born . From the first
Geneva Convention in which the inviolability of rescuers and wounded was defined for the first time, the enunciation of the principles of human rights extended to peacetime up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 will follow, war after war. , where the inviolable right to peace still remains to be affixed.

A great delicacy to narrate a noisy, dramatic and confusing historical event. The image of meat sewn with needle and thread is still very present in my mind, as well as the slow and gentle gesture of putting all the toy soldiers in the tin box, at the end of the war, with that lullaby that almost put a thin veil of silk on the field of the last battle. So in the end, everything was swallowed up by silence and the spectator was left alone, witnessing a tragedy, while the dead and wounded were carried away by the wagons. Thanks again for your time. "

It was a really good show and very well done. When it finished I kept thinking, especially about the hot air balloon scene. That scene, in my opinion, makes you understand that man hates his fellow men so much that he prefers death rather than mutual aid. "
 

The show was very stimulating because it talks about people, like the sutlers, who in history have helped us to get to who we are today, and are sometimes underestimated. "

solo for actress, souvenirs, toy soldiers
by and with SANDRA CAVALLINI

 

historical-scientific collaboration Mirtide Gavelli
of the Civic Museum of the Risorgimento in Bologna

 

Giorgio De Marchi props and leather puppets

 

by SALEBLU  The Treasure Rooms  - cultural Association

Ticket 12 € (full), 10 € (reduced)

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