This dossier is about the work of Fabrizio Crisafulli, Italian theatre director, visual artist and teacher. Crisafulli’s innovative research has recently received important acknowledgements, such as the honoris causa Doctorate Degree in Performance Design awarded by the Roskilde University, Denmark, in September 2015. He also received the Award by the National Association of Theatre Critics with the association Catarsi and our magazine, on October 2016.

The full text of the doctoral lecture held by Crisafulli at Roskilde University, on the occasion of the Doctorate Degree ceremony, is included. In his lecture, the author describes the genesis of his research, from his initial interest in urban planning to his work as a theatre director and pedagogue. Crisafulli’s works call into question the practices of performance from their very foundations, trying to return to the original power of theatre claiming its relevance and plausibility in contemporary times. In his theatre, action meets architecture, drama meets territory and the body in performance meets poetic light. With almost thirty years of independent, rigorous and highly innovative research, his works are poetic and visionary and produce imaginative exchanges between archetypes and the world as it is now.

On the sidelines of Crisafulli’s doctoral lecture, you can find an excerpt from the introduction to the lecture itself by the Roskilde University Rector, Hanne Leth Andersen.

In his essay, Bjorn Laursen, associate professor at Roskilde University, analyses Crisafulli’s work with Performance Design students for the annual Roskilde Lysfest (Light Festival, 2013-16), in the medieval town of Roskilde, the ancient capital of Denmark. Laursen takes into consideration and examines Crisafulli’s working process and its pedagogical aspects in detail. He examines issues concerning Crisafulli’s works from the point of view of visual perception as well, the relationships with the identity of the place and public, the visionary power of images and their challenge in provoking collective imagination.

A recent interview with Crisafulli, edited by Vito Minoia, completes the dossier.

(AA. VV., Il teatro di Fabrizio Crisafulli, Premio Teatri delle Diversità/ANCT, contributi di Hanne Leth Andersen, Fabrizio Crisafulli, Bjørn Laursen, Vito Minoia, «Teatri delle diversità», n. 73-76, dicembre 2016-maggio 2017, p. II).