On the occasion of the celebrations for850th anniversary of the laying of the first stone of the Tower of Pisa, the Cineclub Arsenale and the Teatro di Pisa Foundation, in collaboration with the Opera della Primaziale Pisana, propose two events, at the cinema and at the theatre, to celebrate Pisa, its Tower and the Piazza dei Miracoli, a place of peace and meeting between peoples.
Off we go Wednesday 5 June (8.30pm; free entry) at the Cineclub Arsenale in Pisa, with the screening of the documentary by the late director Daniele Segre ‘E’ viva la Torre di Pisa’, introduced by Sandra Lischi and Emanuele Segre. The film, which takes the passage of the seasons as a temporal scansion and some notations of illustrious travelers as a literary and narrative score, compares itself with the famous Piazza del Duomo in Pisa as a crossroads of peoples and represents its linguistic Babel as a symbol of peace and encounter among the people.
Its serene, cheerful, admired and amused climate becomes evidence of a possible coexistence and achievable harmony. Far from a classic documentary structure as well as from an illustrative and didactic dimension, the film aims to restore and strengthen the echo of an artistic creation known throughout the world, demonstrating its character.
“The surprise of the Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa, when I observed and rediscovered it as an adult, was an extraordinary experience for me that moved me like a child – we read in Daniele Segre’s director’s notes – and attracted me towards this fascinating universal heritage, of unattainable beauty. It was this moment of great emotional intensity that produced in me the desire to tell one of the most well-known places in the world, where poetry, art, beauty and play (the very common gesture to support the Tower) express a message of sharing and universality that seems to be able to distance every difference. The square becomes a place of a chorus of stories and wonder that mixes people and languages of the world in a single positive tension”.
In 1981 Mino Trafeli declared: “We will call it Torre Nascente and it will be illuminated day and night by changing spotlights”. With ‘Parallel Game: the Leaning Tower’ by Mino Trafeli, Friday 25 June (6pm; free entry) in the Ridotto of the Pisa Theater the grandiose experience of Ragione Insidiata will be remembered, the unrivaled program of events, shows and workshops that ‘disguised’ the city of Pisa for the 1981 Carnival.
The event starts from the sketch created by the Volterran artist Mino Trafeli for the construction of the majestic Tower, accessible and made of fibreglass, which represented one of the most spectacular attractions of the ’81 Carnival. The sketch, owned by the Pisa Theater Foundation, will be exhibited in the exhibition The Tower in the Mirror, organized by the Opera della Primaziale Pisana for the 850th anniversary of the foundation of the Cathedral bell tower.
The meeting on Friday 25th, divided into two moments, will be opened by greetings from Patrizia Paoletti Tangheroni, president of the Pisa Theater Foundation, and Andrea Maestrelli, president of the Opera della Primaziale Pisana. This will be followed by a screening of the documentary The Leaning Tower, edited and produced by the Cineclub Arsenale with some live period footage made available by the Trafeli family.
The protagonist of the documentary is the project of the ‘Nascent Tower’, the colossal reproduction (12 meters high) of the top rings of the Bell Tower, which was housed in Piazza XX Settembre, in front of the Town Hall and whose inauguration gave rise to the 1981 Carnival. Through the voice of Roberto Scarpa, who together with Riccardo Bozzi, then director of the Teatro di Pisa, conceived and planned the schedule of Ragione Insidiata events, the documentary retraces that incredible and epochal page of the city’s history, and shows, with archive images , the work and atelier of Mino Trafeli.
At the end of the screening, there will be a moment of conversation, reflection and memories led by the journalist Candida Virgone, who at the time followed and wrote the chronicle of the events of the 1981 Carnival for Il Tirreno, with Marta Trafeli, the art critic Nicola Micieli and with Roberto Scarpa.
