L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 20 L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2018 D ante Alighieri and Boccaccio, Roman- ticism with Leopar- di and Manzoni, Fil- ippo Tommaso Marinetti and Futurism, all the way to Commedia dell' Arte. The play Once upon a time ... takes Italian literature and its most significant writers to the Champs Charter High School of Van Nuys, where talented Italian actresses Silvia Bottini and Sere- na Limonta staged five theatrical performances for students who learn Italian. This cultural endeavor was made possible thanks to the sup- port of the Italian General Con- sulate in Los Angeles, which financed the project, and that of Anna Zeppieri, from the Italian consulate in San Francisco. "I firmly believe that learning our language through creativity and culture is a precious and inspirational instrument to understand Italy and love her even more, for both students and families alike," underlines Gen- eral Consul Antonio Verde. The project was promoted in collaboration with Fondazione Italia, a non-profit organization that aims to spread Italian lan- guage and culture in California. "We always strive to incorpo- rate aspects of Italian culture into language courses. Recently, thanks to the generous support of the Consulate General of Italy Los Angeles, Fondazione Italia has been able to organize pro- jects, courses and workshops that focus specifically on teaching Italian through Italian culture. Initiatives include also a Commedia d'Arte kids theater course, an Italian art kids course, and Italian cooking, music and opera workshops. Fondazione Italia strongly believes that exposing Italian language stu- dents to Italy's rich culture will open windows of interest to them that will inspire and motivate their continued learning of Ital- ian" adds Hilary Stern, executive director of Fondazione Italia. Carlotta, comedian in a the- ater company who randomly arrives in America, is the play's main character. To return home to Italy, she will need the help of the students, who will have to communicate with her in Italian. On stage, she is paired with Speranza, played by award-win- ning actress and dancer from Brianza Serena Limonta. "The play was created with the aim of spreading knowledge about authors and the most important literary movements," says Silvia Bottini, who wrote, produced and directed the show. "We chose a theatrical-interac- tive approach, in order to stimu- late the interest in reading and, at the same time, to improve their level of Italian." From Varese but based in Los Angeles, Silvia Bottini worked almost fifteen years in Italy's most important theaters. "I had the idea of dramatizing literary texts and bringing them into schools when I was still a stu- dent. I collaborated for years with high schools in my country and not many things gratified me as much." Silvia, what is the recurring story in these plays? I play Carlotta, while Serena Limonta is Speranza. During a festival in Genoa we are sup- posed to pack our bags to leave for a tournée, but Carlotta gets allured by a boat that takes her to an unknown land. When there, the two actresses ask students where they are, and when they discover to be in America they understand they have a problem because they don't speak Eng- lish. Their goal is now to teach them the Italian language and culture so that the students can help them go back home. What is your main goal? To communicate as many things as possible to these stu- dents who study a language only on books. The initial idea was to address the authors but it turned out to be useless because in the end-of-year exam students are asked about general culture top- ics. So we decided to meet halfway: to teach them some lit- erature, but proposing it in a lighter context, a cultural one. What reaction did the stu- dents have? In general, students' reaction is positive, and the project is very functional and useful because they understand certain aspects of Italian culture better this way. Goals for the future? For next year, the goal is to keep up what we have already done, maybe re-running these shows that we have already pro- duced and hopefully creating new ones. What satisfied you the most, both as an actress and as an Italian, in LA? As an actress it was very intriguing to write, direct and produce. Since Italian is not their mother tongue I could not exper- iment as much as I wanted, so I had to pay attention to the verbal forms that they don't study, such as the subjunctive. As an Italian, all this means a lot: one of the reasons I do the- ater is because I love literature. Now that I live abroad I have a deep desire to make these texts come back to life. We read less and less, culture is being cut more and more, but there are texts that should not die, not only for their historical importance but also because of their beauty. There is also a project for younger students? Yes, the project is called Pop- Corn Club and is a film club for mother-tongue children. In this case, the idea is to show Italian films introduced by two charac- ters: the director and the pop- corn vendor. What did you learn from this experience? It was interesting for an Ital- ian actress to understand the cul- tural differences and the different approaches to education. Being an Italian show… Did you mention food at all? Yes, we talked about fettuc- cine Alfredo and about the fact they are not a true Italian dish. So many topics create a debate at the end. I am very honored to be able to convey in a foreign country things that are almost obsolete, even for Italians. I feel like I am representing Italy. SILVIA GIUDICI The play Once Upon a Time takes Italian literature to High School classrooms I t a l i a n l i t e r a t u r e b e c o m e s a p l ay t o entertain the students of Los Angeles LOS ANGELES ITALIAN COMMUNITY Silvia Bottini and Serena Limonta

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