Research

General presentation

The Research Department of the Dimitri Academy focuses its activities on physical theatre, in clowning and figure theatre. The physical theatre is understood as a form of theatre where the body and the movement of the actor are at the centre of the dramaturgical process: the body as a working tool, movement as an expressive modality and the origin of artistic forms/contents. The clown is approached as a figure which, although often underestimated by the Western academic world, encapsulates paradigmatic aspects of human cultural history. Figure theatre allows one to question the relationships between human beings and objects in the material world, and the negotiations between real subject, object and perceived subject.

The main strand of the Academy’s research activities is interwoven with two areas of applied research dedicated respectively to the teaching of physical theatre and theatre in educational and social contexts. Among the main objectives of the first one there is a deep and wide integration of research and training activities. The second aim is to respond to the need for a presence on the territory and links with society: objectives in this sense are to implement and maintain in interdisciplinarity a deep anchorage of art for the approach to social and cultural issues, and to enhance and develop the contributions of physical theatre to other social (including the area of human wellbeing), educational and professional spheres.

The geographical position of the Academy and the origin of its teachers and researchers favour a role as a hub where contributions from research and theatrical practice from different traditions and linguistic fields converge, allowing the integration of perspectives that often fail to enter into dialogue. The focus on an approach to the experiences and knowledge that pass through the body and movement, moreover, make it possible to question the sense of the human body in cultural and artistic ways, while at the same time questioning the binaries and normativity that tend to separate and hierarchise the body with respect to the mind, the emotional with respect to the rational, the masculine with respect to the feminine, the disciplines of the word with respect to those of the movement.