The Artistic Director avails himself of the collaboration of a multiplicity of other specialized and technical professions, from directors to production managers, scriptwriters, technicians, as well as of course actors, singers, dancers, anyone who performs on stage. A team that must be coordinated and march in unison. In the conception and planning of an event's programming, it is also essential to define the necessary resources. All skills that require a long process and extensive experience, but which alone are not enough. It takes great drive and a lot of passion!
Reading between the lines of your brief past, it seems that theater has always been a passion. Is that true?
«In my case, in addition to passion, I believe that a sort of family DNA had an influence because my grandfather, who was Sicilian and actually worked as a master builder, was a director, author and performer in a theatre company that toured Sicily and Calabria during the spring and summer. Even though I was very young, he passed on to me his love for poetry, theatre and theatricality in general. I consider it a sort of DNA because I felt it inside me and I cultivated it since high school. Even then I was connected to the youth groups that did theatre in the town where I grew up. Over time, my passion grew to the point of making me decide to make it my job».
Did you do theatre yourself?
«Yes, and I never had any doubts about the choice, even if only later I understood what theater really meant to me. For me, it means being in a place, a place more mental than physical, that someone calls “home” as a place of belonging and identity, where I recognize myself as a human being. And that, in the people who are close to me in my daily work, makes me recognize people of solidarity who share my ideas and my passions. During childhood and adolescence I was quite restless and I couldn't understand how to be in the world and it is thanks to theater that I finally succeeded».
Given the enormity of the proposals, how do you choose the theme of the season each year, therefore the program?
"What you bring to a theater is actually nothing more than a reading of what is happening worldwide, to which you must pay great attention. Preparing an artistic season means choosing texts that, through the tools you have at your disposal, can convey to the public the different souls that are stirring in the world of culture, trying to make people understand the complexity of our present. I choose to program texts and companies with the goal of bringing different proposals to the Lugano public that represent different souls, proposing in the same season a varied offer made up of theater, performance, dance - a discipline to which I intend to give more and more space - that respects the vision I have of humanity, which is precisely a complex vision made up of many individuals who have different ways of thinking and facing life. A complexity that does not mean complication.
A research that makes me identify some “fil rouge”, which are basically the questions that I ask myself during the year, and which lead me to then ask myself the “question” with a capital D, which will become the leitmotif of the following year».
How are the various proposals selected?
"I'm not alone, there's a work table with me, people who accompany me. We travel, we meet the artists, with some of them we create lasting bonds. You have to have full trust in the artists you choose. The difficulty obviously comes from the vastness of the offer of the cultural panorama, both local and international. In any case, the goal is to profile yourself and create that season that in some way resembles you a lot, that reflects your way of thinking."
In your opinion, what is the first task of an artistic director?
«Work for your city, not for yourself. The theater is not the identification of the artistic director and the artistic director must not say that he is the one directing that theater. Because that theater is actually directed by the needs of the city, therefore by its citizens. In the case of the LAC then with “City” we refer to a territory a little larger than Lugano, which certainly includes the Sottoceneri and a large part of the rest of Ticino».
What aspects of theatre are you most comfortable with?
"I really like directorial theatre, which looks at the complexity of humanity through the text. I have always considered that theatre very important: it was born in antiquity and through literature, the word and the body on stage, it tries in every way to answer the great questions that humanity asks itself."
Given today's difficult reality, can it in any way influence the program and the type of shows?
"If we think about the shattered world that exists right now, between wars and everything else, in the billboard and in the choices of texts that we represent there is certainly a connection, even if only metaphorical, not necessarily, as it were, a vision of the news. We choose texts, themes that in some way look at what is happening. In recent years we have closely observed the challenges of modernity that are being implemented, not so much in the field of culture but above all in the sciences, technology, artificial intelligence, in computer science and information, in communication. Among the epochal changes in fact there are social networks and their influence, useful tools, but which can also present dangerous drifts.
The theatre must take these developments into consideration, it cannot pretend that they do not exist because it too becomes a place where the question is complex and, with due time, must be investigated in depth. This is why lately my relationship with science and scientific and technological activities has become very important».
An example of a theatre with these characteristics?
«Galileo process, three stories linked to the figure of Galileo Galilei, between science and conscience, to investigate our contemporary times, is one of our productions that I care a lot about, which has toured a lot and continues to be very successful.
A show that not only highlighted how science has moved from the 600th century to today, but that generated a whole series of questions, events, conferences, meetings with students and artists, exchanges of ideas and debates. An added value of which the show in the hall was the starting point, with the specific topic investigated in depth. We asked ourselves numerous questions: what is the power of science today, what is the connection between science and power, between science and politics, how does science manage its relationships with the economic activities of the world».
What are the big questions and challenges that theatre faces today?
«The LAC has many questions, especially from the point of view of what the theater will be in the future. Can there be a link between tradition and innovation? Is it possible to synthesize the two? We spent ten years building the foundations of the LAC and now that the structure is solid we can also begin to imagine what we don't have yet. For example, a second smaller room that can allow us to experiment. We also imagine a more important relationship with music. Now having Andrea Amarante as director of the music sector, we will be able to develop musical production much more, something that until now had not been possible because we did not have enough space.
We would also like to give more space to dance, which is having so much success, also with a project that allows co-production with the most important dance companies. The international contemporary dance festival Lugano Dance Project, which recently transformed the city into a great showcase for artists and operators of the performing arts from all over the world, continues to have great success giving us great satisfaction».
What role do you attribute to local productions?
«A fundamental role because the lifeblood comes from the territory. Having artists and production of the territory means having production, innovation and creativity and propulsion of ideas, which start from here towards the world.
The way we understood theatre before the opening of the LAC in Lugano, where shows arrived for just one day and then left, was completely wrong. Today the concept is different: shows are born here, they are designed for those who are here, then they leave and come back. An idea that in my opinion has created a workforce and induced in the territory.
What would you like to say to the people of Lugano?
"I am very interested in the public and the territory understanding, and I am convinced that they have understood, how fundamental the LAC project is for the development of a territorial culture and for the change and emancipation of the territory, also for the development of thought. The LAC project, even if we are small, really small but we are still a great team, has brought Lugano to be a point of reference in the panorama of international culture. Now we are also making co-productions in America, both in the United States and in Canada, as well as throughout Europe".
Carmelo Rifici
Born in 1973, graduated in Literature, he graduated from the Stabile di Torino and is a collaborating director of Luca Ronconi. Since 2014 he has been the artistic director of LuganoInScena. Since 2020 he has been the artistic director of LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura for which he signs the project and directs Macbeth, the hidden things, of which he is also the author with Dematté; The pericolose relazioni, written with Livia Rossi; The Traviata by Verdi conducted by Markus Poschner; Galileo process, co-directed with Andrea De Rosa; Arctic Ulysses, co-produced by the Teatro Biondo of Palermo; Anna Bolena by Donizetti conducted by Diego Fasolis; The flea in the ear, of which he takes care of the translation, adaptation and dramaturgy together with Tindaro Granata, in the three finalist shows for the Hystrio Twister Award 2024, the year in which he directs De Gasperi: Europe is burning written by Angela Dematté, finalist for the 2024 Le Maschere del Teatro Italiano Award in three categories. Since 2015, she has directed the “Luca Ronconi” Theatre School of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In 2005, she won the Critics' Award as an emerging director, in 2009 the Eti Olimpici del Teatro Award as director of the year, the Critics' Award, the Golden Graal and is nominated for the Ubu Awards as director, the Enriquez Award for the LuganoInScena theatre season (2015) and for the direction of Iphigenia, released (2017), the Prize I nr. Uno of the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Switzerland for his work at the LAC (2019). In 2021 the Radicondoli Prize for the theatre, declares him Maestro; he wins the Hystrio Digital Stage Award and the Ubu Special Award for the digital project Native language. Capsules for the future, created with Paola Tripoli.
