Mask and Commedia dell’Arte: from the Object to Scenic Practices and Back
International conference, 21–23 October 2026
The mask of the Commedia dell’Arte, a rare object transmitted only fragmentarily, is today at the center of renewed interest that weaves together historical, artisanal, performative, museological, and pedagogical dimensions. It’s revival in the twentieth century — thanks in particular to the work of the Sartori family and other master practitioners — restored to the contemporary stage a device that redefines the body, gesture, dramaturgy, and the relationship with the audience. The mask belongs to a complex ecosystem of practices, archives, and materials, and takes shape as a cultural and symbolic interface capable of traversing eras and traditions, engaging today in dialogue with digital identities, avatars, and new forms of facial representation.
This international conference, organized by Accademia Teatro Dimitri, the Swiss Association for Theatre Studies, the MUSEC – Museum of Cultures in Lugano, and the research laboratory Scènes du Monde Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis University, represents the inaugural stage of a broader research initiative devoted to the study of the functions, transformations, and contemporary reactivations of the mask. It brings into relation objects, practices, and bodies of knowledge through an interdisciplinary approach that unites the stage, the museum, and the academia.
The mask of the Commedia dell’Arte can be approached from multiple perspectives: as a material object, as cultural heritage, as anthropological evidence, as documentation of theatrical practices, as a pedagogical resource, as a performative device, and more. A distinctive element of the historical phenomenon of the Commedia dell’Arte and one of the factors that determined its international success (Bossier, Ferrone, Taviani, Schino), it nonetheless remains an object about which we still know relatively little. Of this artefact, in fact, only a very small number of examples have reached us, and the knowledge of the hands and bodies that once governed its creation and use has largely been lost over time, within a scenic tradition that appears discontinuous or interrupted (Filacanapa).
From the beginning of the twentieth century onward, the mask underwent gradual rehabilitation: first as a utopian idea, then through its scenic application, and eventually through the rediscovery of the techniques involved in the fabrication of the object itself (Freixe). In this process, a fundamental role was played by the contribution of the Sartori family, to whom the exhibition “Masks. The Sartori Collection”, held at the MUSEC – Museum of Cultures in Lugano, is dedicated.
This path of rediscovery has also involved numerous mask makers who, following in the footsteps of the Sartori family, contributed to the revival of the Commedia dell’Arte in the twentieth century and to its international spread, continuing to nourish the imagination of generations of artists and spectators around the world. Today, the Commedia dell’Arte mask may be regarded as an extraordinary catalyst for highly productive practices and research questions that intersect issues of conservation and archiving, exhibition narratives, pedagogies of the body, and contemporary artistic reactivations. In this sense, its ability to dialogue with contemporary languages — including forms of digital self-representation, filters, avatars, and multiple identities — confirms the vitality of an object that continues to question the ways in which we construct and negotiate our social face.
From a museological and archival perspective, the Commedia dell’Arte mask emerges as an object that calls for layered and complex reflection. This includes considerations regarding its classification, conservation, restoration, monitoring, and display. The mask is part of a constellation of other materials (drawings, casts, associated costumes and lazzi, descriptions, etc.) that refer to an artisanal, cultural, and performative ecosystem. From an exhibition standpoint, a key issue concerns the articulations required to present to the public an artefact that is not an autonomous sculpture, but rather an object that comes to life through its encounter with the body of an actor or actress.
From a historical and cultural point of view, the mask is an essential component for understanding the phenomenon of the Commedia dell’Arte, the traces it has left, and its various manifestations. It also constitutes an archetypal and symbolic interface between the individual and the collective, conveying memories, codes, and roles, and inscribing itself within iconographic genealogies that range from the late-medieval demonic and grotesque, through the landscape of itinerant Renaissance theatre companies, to the sociopolitical typologies of the modern and contemporary stage. The mask — central to theatrical practice from its origins to today’s experiments — represents within the Commedia dell’Arte not only a specific scenic object, but more broadly a privileged site for reflecting on the ways in which theatre, in its crises and transformations, questions its own nature and raison d’être. This threshold function between identity and role, between face and figure, now powerfully re-emerges beyond the stage as well, in an era in which the construction of one’s personal image — both online and offline — takes on forms that are diverse yet deeply connected to the very idea of the mask.
In terms of theatrical practices and pedagogies, the mask can be understood as a true technology of the body: an element that redefines fundamental components of stage presence such as posture, movement quality, breathing, rhythm, and visual field. It also represents a central dramaturgical node: it does not merely make a character recognizable to the audience through external appearance, but determines its internal logic, dynamism, and poetics, while simultaneously influencing every aspect of a performance’s composition.
From its origins to the present day, the Commedia mask has always been a device capable of revealing the fundamental structures of scenic play, while maintaining an open dialogue with improvisation and variation. In theatre schools, the mask also functions as a valuable tool for training presence, listening, relational awareness, spatial construction, and choral dynamics. At the same time, the mask is the product of a long artisanal tradition that must face a challenge that is at least twofold: to create an object that endures over time even though it is intended for an ephemeral art form, and to anticipate, already in the making process, its future performative metamorphosis, in which form, function, and movement become inseparable.
• Organized by Accademia Teatro Dimitri and the Swiss Association for Theatre Studies, in collaboration with the MUSEC – Museum of Cultures in Lugano, and the research laboratory Scènes du Monde at Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis University, with the support of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, the international conference “Mask and Commedia dell’Arte: from the Object to Scenic Practices and Back” constitutes the first stage of a broader international research initiative devoted to the uses and functions of the Commedia dell’Arte mask. This initiative will lead to the publication of the third volume of a historical anthropology of the scenic mask in Europe.
• The conference will also offer the opportunity to attend a Commedia dell’Arte and Clowning performance featuring students from Accademia Teatro Dimitri, directed by Gianni Coluzzi and Emmanuel Pouilly.
The event aims to address the complexity of studying Commedia dell’Arte masks by articulating a plurality of perspectives and research questions within an interdisciplinary framework. It brings together scholars and practitioners who, in various capacities, work with masks — in both their material and immaterial dimensions — by making, conserving, classifying, exhibiting, studying, interpreting, and effectively using them on stage. In this way, the international conference seeks to connect the object, its study, and the practices that place it at the center, examining how it is transformed and regenerated through the passages — back and forth — between the stage, academia, and the museum.
• International conference, 21–23 October 2026
