They call him the ‘Geppetto’ of Bari Vecchia. Roberto Lanave is a master carpenter who performs in small puppet shows, with creations that he produces by hand, always attracting children and above all many tourists. He is not a pied piper, but this morning, in the small square of Strada Palazzo di Città, he enchanted dozens of people who watched the performance with curiosity, during which he staged a fragment of his show: “Yes… I love puppets.” Among the spectators, the little pupils of the nursery school “The dormouse’s den”, coordinated by the tourist visit agency in Bari on “Little train of happiness”.
Nothing could be simpler, after all: a little theatre, hands moving puppets and an audience of children. Nothing simpler and more powerful than the amazement in the innocent eyes of those new to life: it is the magic created precisely in Piazza Sant’Anna, with a group of 50 little children together with their mothers and school teachers, who attended Lanave’s free puppet show. “Roberta Crocetta, organizer of the Little Train of Happiness, sometimes brings children to my show. They go crazy when they see me and it fills me with joy: I’ve been doing this job for 27 years, but it’s always as if it were the first time. The little ones: you give and they give to you. And today was fantastic, everyone had fun, there was great enthusiasm not only among the children, but even the tourists stopped to watch me.” This is what Lanave comments to Telebari, who reveals to us that he has a project in store that will start in his laboratory: a wonderland present in the heart of old Bari, in two small boxes on Strada Palazzo di Città.
“I opened this space to be able to perform freely as a puppeteer, given the demand from tourists and citizens to see me operate the puppets, but I want it to become a place open to all, a cultural laboratory where I offer my technical support to anyone who wants to perform and learn to create theatrical performances”. Among the activities there is “The craft of the mask”, where the puppeteer from Bari teaches how to build the commedia dell’arte masks in leather on wooden casts: “It is a very ancient craft, a technique from five hundred years ago that disappeared and was revived by some great artists and I am the first in Southern Italy to bring it.” Roberto’s goal is clear: to stimulate new artists and ‘insiders’ to want to perform, learn and improve. “Anyone who wants can, from today, contact me via social media or by telephone to participate in the project’s initiatives”. The puppeteer thus hopes to transmit his art to other enthusiasts, organizing workshops and exhibition spaces open to all.
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(VIDEO SERVICE BY MARICLA PASTORE)
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