LiberArte, Shakespeare's theater as an artistic "escape"

PRESS RELEASE.

SASSARI. The "LiberArte" theater project carried out by the Penitentiary University Center of the University of Sassari (PUP Uniss) together with ERSU Sassari continues. After the September 2024 show, two more performances are planned, again in Tempio-Nuchis prison, between now and January 2025, included as the first in the framework of the SHARPER-European Researchers' Night events.

Twenty detained students are taking advantage of the opportunity to challenge themselves on a new stage by interpreting a highly evocative text, one of the most beloved by the playwright William Shakespeare: "The Tempest". The preparatory activities for the staging carried out during the "LiberArte" laboratory, curated by the director Chiara Murru under the scientific supervision of Professor Loredana Salis (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Uniss) and the coordination of Professor Elisabetta Garau (Department of History) were fundamental. , Human Sciences and Education Uniss). The results of this project with a speaking name confirm once again the liberating power of art, the discovery of a territory of the soul freed from daily stress and capable of discovering new interests and talents.

The PUP Uniss, which adheres to the CNUPP - National University Conference of Penitentiary Centres, has also chosen this year as part of SHARPER to pursue objective 11 of the United Nations 2030 agenda "Social inclusion and sustainable communities". Four theatrical performances are held between July 2024 and January 2025 in Nuchis, because this Penitentiary Institute is an Italian excellence, as approximately 15% of the inmates are actively engaged in university studies (compared to the Italian average of 2%), and more than 50% are engaged in high school or university training courses. Nothing would have been possible without the efficient collaboration of the prison staff of the Tempio Pausania Prison, directed by Dr. Veronica Proietti.

For the Rector of the University of Sassari Gavino Mariotti, "initiatives of this type once again underline the strong territorial roots of our university, which invests ever-increasing human and economic resources in technological transfer initiatives, sharing of knowledge and research, involvement of local communities, even in difficult contexts such as the penitentiary one, where we have been at the forefront for over a decade".

"This is an event with a strong social impact, in which we have the ambition to bring those who usually live "outside" into prison, to experience first-hand how the cultural paths designed by training bodies and public institutions that collaborate with each other can constitute an important opportunity for training and cultural growth for people under detention: this is one of the most important missions of the PUP" declares Emmanuele Farris, professor at the University of Sassari and Rector's Delegate for the Penitentiary University Centre.

“The theater workshop is part of the LiberArte penitentiary cultural project with the aim of offering the students inmates of the Tempio-Nuchis prison opportunities for meeting and discussing with those who work in the area and for active participation in a cultural experience which has potential and aptitudes emerge, as happened with the writing and painting workshops held a few years ago in the same Penitentiary Institute" claims the coordinator of the LiberArte project Elisabetta Garau.

“The actors, having their first acting experience, are confronted with one of the pillar texts of the universal theatrical canon, giving it new life”, points out Loredana Salis, coordinator of the workshop. “Faithful to the original text, albeit slightly reduced, this staging of Shakespeare's The Tempest is colored with dialect accents and expressions, fully capturing the essence of Shakespearean theater in its narration of everyday life and its unexpected events, and reflecting as if it were a mirror, the complexity of the human soul and, at the same time, the peculiarity of life 'inside'”.

“The event represents the result of work carried out in recent years, which ERSU convincingly supports. Seeing our students try their hand at this performance gives us hope for the complete achievement of the objectives that the organization has set itself by joining the PUP project", say the President Daniele Maoddi and the General Director Libero Meloni.