Event Details
Fri, June 30, 2017
13:00 – 14:00
Courtyard, Palazzo Strozzi
PALAZZO STROZZI
Piazza Strozzi, 1
50122 Firenze, ITALY
The NYU Tisch School of the Arts Commedia dell’Arte students perform a musical procession that retells the story of Medusa with a modern feminist twist. In this musical procession with large scale puppets, the NYU Commedia del Arte students bring to life the story of the beautiful maiden, Medusa, who was raped by Poseiden while worshipping in Athena’s temple. The goddess Athena then seeks vengeance by transforming Medusa’s hair into snakes, so that anyone who gazed at her directly would be turned into stone. In this work, our focus in acknowledging the pain of the mortal Medusa who was innocent – and that this is an eternal story that continues today.
Featured Biographies
NYU Commedia dell'Arte
NYU THEATER GROUP
For 17 years, Jim Calder has brought undergraduate students to NYU’s Florence campus to study Commedia dell’Arte. The Commedia dell’Arte workshop at La Pietra is an exciting and rigorous program that teaches drama students, through the vehicle of the Commedia stock characters, what it feels like to believe in something, to want something, and to go after it. Students take an array of classes with Jim and Master Teacher Jacob Olesen, as well as other renowned faculty members who visit Florence each summer: prop construction with Joan Harmon, Grotowski training with Andre Baer, Music with Nolufefe Mtshabe and more.