Training workshop combining theater and dance with Giulio Santolini and Lorenza Guerrini for educators, teachers, and students
This one-day workshop is designed as a space for research and experimentation to explore how body language and improvisation can become powerful and transformative pedagogical tools.
The workshop is divided into two closely intertwined parts: one practical and one more theoretical, focused on discussion. In addition to direct experience of some exercises, we will devote valuable time to analyzing the proposed practices. We will discuss together how to structure a workshop for classes based on three key suggestions:
– Peter Pan, understood as the rejection of a rigid, adult structure; the eternal present of childhood where everything is possible,
– anarchy, understood in a pedagogical sense as creative self-management. How can we allow children to break the rules of “composed” behavior in order to find a new order based on trust and freedom?
– the Dionysian, understood as the recovery of instinct, celebration, and vitality. In a school world often centered on rational control, the Dionysian brings back to the center the vital energy, rhythm, and joy of creative chaos.
We will explore how “creative chaos” can become a moment of profound learning, where vitality is not a disturbance but a driver of knowledge. This workshop is not just a refresher course on theater techniques, but an opportunity to rethink the educational relationship through the body. With theater and dance exercises, we will work on breaking down movement, listening to the group, and freedom of expression. We will not seek the “perfect form,” but the truth of the gesture: a body that dances is a body that communicates before words.
Teaching requires immense energy. This workshop is also conceived as a space of care for the teacher: a moment to shed the mantle of “structured knowledge” and rediscover the joy of play.
The aim of the workshop is to provide teachers not only with “exercises to repeat,” but also with a new lens through which to look at themselves and the class group: an assembly of free bodies, capable of dreaming and creating together.
Note for participants: comfortable clothing and non-slip socks are recommended. No previous athletic or theatrical training is required, only the desire to get involved.