Pippo Delbono (born 1 June 1959 in Varazze, Italy) is an Italian author, actor, and director.
Biography
Pippo Delbono began training in traditional theatre in Denmark,[1] studying the principles of oriental theatre, through a rigorous work on body and voice. Later, in Germany, Delbono was invited by Pina Bausch[2] to follow her work. At the beginning of the 80's he founded the Compagnia Pippo Delbono, creating most of his works with them, from Il Tempo degli Assassini (1987) to La Gioia (2018).[3]
He does not stage plays[4] but, rather, total creations, devised with a stable group of actors whose number has grown through the years. The encounter with socially marginalized people determines a turning point in his poetical research: that's how Barboni (1997) was born.[5] Some of these actors – among them Bobò,[6] deaf-mute, who had been kept in an asylum in Aversa, near Naples, for forty-five years and recently died – have kept working with the company and are still a central part of this experience.
The works that followed — La rabbia dedicated to Pasolini, Guerra, Esodo, Gente di plastica, Racconti di giugno, Urlo, Il silenzio, Questo buio feroce, La menzogna, Dopo la battaglia,[7]Orchidee,[8]Vangelo, La gioia — like the ones before, have been performed worldwide in more than fifty countries, in theaters and festivals, including the Festival d'Avignon (where a lot of the company's creations were presented),[9] Barcelona's Grec, Theater Spektakel in Zurich, Festwochen in Wien, Festival TransAmeriques in Montreal, Venice Biennale, etc.
In 2009, he was one of the recipients of the XI Europe Prize Theatrical Realities. The prize organization described Delbono as a "poet of social marginalisation and diversity" and stated that he "has always seen art as a fundamental experience for overcoming desperation".[16]
