TPO Company and Interactive Theater of Prato, Italy, will be in Aspen this weekend to conduct workshops with children from Aspen Elementary School and Aspen Country Day School. The theater program has won awards around the world.
When we talk about theater in primary schools, we think of polystyrene trees, wooden houses and children in front of the stage singing songs.
TPO Company and Interactive Theater are turning this paradigm on its head by creating pioneering multidisciplinary performances that fuse music, dance, art, sculpture, digital media, lighting and sound into a one-of-a-kind immersive experience for children ages 4-10.
TPO, founded in 1999 in Prato, Italy, will be in Aspen this weekend for workshops with elementary school children from Aspen Elementary School and Aspen Country Day School. The theater company's work will be on display to the public today at the Wheeler Opera House for a performance at 6 p.m. (doors open at 5:30 p.m.). Places are limited to 60 people only.
This year, we have increased our outreach efforts in Wheeler and throughout the Roaring Fork Valley by collaborating with local schools to offer specialized educational programs, said Malia Machado, Programs Administrator and Educational Outreach Coordinator for the Opera. We are excited to offer unique opportunities like this, enriching the lives of local young people and igniting their passion for the arts.
TPO has won awards for its innovation and artistry in China, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United States. The company has received numerous accolades for its approach to education and the arts.
In TPO performances, students and adults sit on stage alongside the two dancers to create an intimate atmosphere: children sit on the floor while adults sit in chairs. The dancers invite the children in the audience to join them in creative movement. Images and sounds interface with children as they use their bodies to paint and play music with ever-changing visuals on stage, transforming living gestures and virtual landscapes into an interactive gallery.
Children dance in a show by Erbo: A Forest in the City produced by the TPO company and the Interactive Theater.
Valentina Consoli is one of the dancers in the production. She is originally from Italy and has worked at TPO since 2014. She has a background in ballet, contemporary dance and has also been a choreographer. It was the interaction with children that attracted her to TPO.
The main goal is to allow children to explore, Consoli said. It happens very organically. Our shows are immersive. Once on stage, the children are inside the show, they are part of it. Dance is a universal language, it is easy to communicate with the body. Sometimes children surprise us by doing things we didn't expect. Sometimes we lead them and other times they lead us. It's a game we play. It's fascinating.
The other dancer in the show is Bla Dobiasova, originally from the Czech Republic. She moved to Italy five years ago and was immediately drawn to TPO.
You usually go on tour and star in a very scripted work, Dobiasova said. The story is the same every night. But our shows are very fluid. We decide what to do and when to move on to the next scene. It makes things real, you react in that moment. Working with children and seeing them come to life, especially the shy ones, is wonderful. I never know what will happen at each performance and it remains exciting.
Although each performance is different due to improvisation between the dancers and children, the piece has a basic plot. For example, one of them is called Erbo: A Forest in the City and tells the story of the development of an urban community.
One dancer plays the role of architect, drawing houses and streets in the landscape, while the other dancer focuses on nature, drawing grass and trees on two large projection screens. As the town evolves, the children contribute by coloring and populating it, but inevitably the harmony is challenged by the forces of growth in the form of a factory being built in the town.
In response, the dancers, alongside the children, help create a new space where nature thrives, culminating with a concert of trees symbolizing their shared dream of a city in harmony with nature.
For this specific performance, Lisa Rigsby Peterson, executive director of the Wheeler, contacted Davide Venturini, artistic director of TPO, and asked him to create an original adaptation of A Forest in the City specifically with the landscape of Aspen and the character of Roaring Fork Valleys. , monuments and the ecosystem as a source of inspiration.
This past May, Venturini came to Aspen and studied the landscapes and architecture of the Roaring Fork Valley in order to use them for a one-of-a-kind production of Forest in the City.
After a week in Aspen last spring with the company, Davide created a beautiful show that reflects so many recognizable and inspiring elements of our community, Peterson said. At the Wheeler, we are very proud to share this special show with children and families.
I have been working with TPO for six years and have seen the impact of their amazing visual, dance and interactive creative work on children and adults. This is a work of art of the highest quality, created specifically for young children to engage their hearts and minds. It’s visually stunning, and the journey the dancers take audience members on is enchanting and magical and I know the memories they create with TPO on the Wheeler Stage will last a long time.
