Human link - Stories of travelling people

Rita Maffei

Human link. Stories of travelling people is a participatory art performance, directed by Rita Maffei, actor and director at CSS Teatro stabile di innovazione del FVG, created with refugees involved in SPRAR reception projects run by the City of Peace for Children Foundation and Arci Basilicata, together with young citizens from the community in Basilicata. 

The performance comes from the experience of a participatory workshop that began in January 2018, which filled all the participants with enthusiasm, nurturing their trust and the desire to share. The workshop brought together participants from Rionero in Vulture, Aleppo, Pietragalla, Potenza, Benin City, Accra, Ferrandina, Tramutola, Banjul…. in the process of creating a theatrical performance with roots in the texts of classical Greek theatre elaborated in a contemporary way.  

Starting from the ever-topical tales told by Aeschylus and Euripides, we discovered the urgent need to describe and share the human experience of each participant.
“The performance puts on stage the tales of people who are travelling, a theme that is relevant to everyone, both the Italians who receive those who come here and the foreigners who are received” states the director Rita Maffei “We are all travellers and it is only when we are aware of this condition that we can welcome other people and listen to them”.

The funeral dirge that is a tradition in the south of Italy is mixed with the songs of hope that come from distant lands, the weeping of the exiles from Troy weaves together with the tales of the shattered lives of refugees, to share the pain and the joy of living together in this world at a terrible and beautiful moment in our history, rediscovering human emotions that have remained unchanged for thousands of years.

Human link is performed by 21 participants: Lama Ahmad Bah, Raffaella Cantore, Rocco D’Amico, Alessia Dapoto, Paul Gomez, Sulayman Jadana, Mamadou Keita, Giovanni Lancellotti, Maria Pina Mastrizzi, Olivia Tatiana Monkam Ngandi, Bertin Rene Nana, Serge Mve Nkoulou, Osas Oboh, Raphael Odogwu, Uhnoma Osariemen, Jennifer Oshodi, Rosa Pippa, Joy Saidku, Esther Tejansie, Lidia Trama, and Maddalena Vodola; in video we see Akkam Mohamed, Rai Milan, Shirin and Muari Ammune, and Domenica Lisanti.

The theatrical project was produced by City of Peace for Children Foundation and CSS Teatro stabile di innovazione del Friuli Venezia Giulia, who provided their many years of experience in participatory theatre.
The director had the collaboration of professor Raffaella Cantore of the University of Basilicata and the International Institute “Jacques Maritain” for the preparation of the scripts, and of Giovanni Lancellotti for the video and photography.

City of Peace for Children Foundation was born from an idea by Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams. In 2003 the local population of Basilicata were protesting against a proposed project to bury radioactive material in the area of Scanzano Ionico. During these protests, Betty Williams stepped in to support an alternative use of the territory.
The Foundation was created by the Regione Basilicata, the local authorities of Scanzano Ionico and Sant'Arcangelo (PZ) and the World Center of Compassion for Children. It has been active since 2011 in Sant'Arcangelo and is involved in creating a system of reception, protection and integration for people who have suffered persecution or are afraid of being persecuted due to their ethnicity, religion, nationality or belonging to a certain social group.
The first refugee families were welcomed in February 2012, and in June 2012 his Holiness the Dalai Lama formally inaugurated the Foundation during his visit to Basilicata.
Since then, the Foundation has become part of the SPRAR (Protection and Reception System for Refugees and Asylum Seekers) and has welcomed more than 250 people from North-West Africa, the Horn of Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East in numerous projects together with the Prefettura of Potenza, the Prefettura of Matera and with its partners Arci Basilicata and the Cooperativa Sociale Il Sicomoro.
In 2014 Betty Williams demonstrated the foundation's activities to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the UN headquarters in New York. The City of Peace in Sant'Arcangelo and Scanzano Ionico was visited by his Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2012 and by the actress and human rights activist Sharon Stone in 2015.