The Italian Institute of Culture and CETEC – Spazio Alda Merini are pleased to present A Walk with Alda Merini. Alda Merini in her own words on Thursday, 4 May 2023 at 6:00 pm at the Italian Institute of Culture (82 Nicolson St, Edinburgh EH8 9EW).
This storytelling-talk, with music and song, drawing on the life and work of Alda Merini, Poet of Milan’s Navigli, is interpreted by actress-singer Gilberta Crispino and directed by Donatella Massimilla, the Artistic Director of Milan’s Spazio Alda Merini. Maggie Rose has worked on the project as a dramaturg and translator. During this virtual walk in Milan, Donatella and Maggie, as Italian and English narrators, will evoke the Navigli (canal) area, where Merini was born and lived (1931-2009). They will take you inside the Spazio Alda Merini, to visit Merini’s bedroom and her celebrated Angels’ Wall, while listening to the author’s story: the poems, songs and autobiographical fragments bring these objects to life. Several of Merini’s poems have been put to music by celebrated musician and composer Giovanni Nuti: he has very kindly given CETEC’s Gilberta Crispino permission to sing some of them.
The CETEC theatre company, founded thirty years ago by Donatella Massimilla, produces shows and carries out theatre research. From the outset the company worked at Milan’s San Vittore prison and also curated Festivals; since 2021 CETEC has directed Spazio Alda Merini, a prestigious house-museum devoted to the Poet of the Navigli. CETEC’s latest show is due to open at Milan’s iconic Piccolo Teatro on 20 – 21 May 2023.
Donatella Massimilla is a director and playwright from Rome. She has drawn inspiration from leading theatre practitioners and her theatre work is as Bertold Brecht said “art as a place of change”. In 2018 she was awarded the honorary title of “Ambrogino d’oro” for her community work by the Mayor of Milan.
Gilberta Crispino is an actor, singer and dubber. She has played the lead in many Shakespeare productions and has led theatre workshops at Milan’s San Vittore prison.
Maggie Rose is a playwright, dramaturg and translator. Since the 1990s she has visited Scotland, writing plays about Italian migration and curating festival-symposiums, like “Italian Scottish Identities and Connections”. She translated and co-adapted Renato Gabrielli’s “Mobile Thriller”, recipient of a Herald Angel Award. She co-directs English Theatre Milan.
The event is free, but ticketed. Please register below.
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