What We Do Doing Theatre at School. An Experience of Social Theater in Italy During the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Ethnographic Research

Abstract

Abstract The article reflects the role of theater in the Italian school, starting from the research carried out with an experience in social theater in a high school in Pavia during the Covid-19 pandemic. The difficulties due to distancing have made evident the importance of the socializing role of theater in person for the training of students, forced to undergo complex transformations due to the pandemic situation like the whole world of live entertainment. The centrality of the body seemed irreplaceable, but its absence prompted us to explore new forms of expression, integrating performance and mediatization, bringing together theater-school and professional theater in the rethinking of liveness. The article is divided into two parts: the first describes the social theater in the development of the school-theater in Italy; the second deals with the ethnographic research carried out in the Pavia high school between March 2020 and May 2021.