The show aims to revive in the streets of the town or in particular locations the ancient stories of our island about the origin and legends of witches and fairies. To give space back to a time when popular magic, the one told by the elderly, by adults to children, transformed a shadow into a wizard, a cloud into a story, a fountain into a magical and sacred place, with the typical street theater progression, using corners and spaces that the host towns and locations will offer. We will talk about cogas, surbiles, surtòras, strias, janas and bruscias, of wizards and elusive gods and of … GENTILES. These characters, the first inhabitants of Sardinia, in ancient PARISTORIAS (legends) are the custodians of the task of ‘shepherds of the land’, to prepare it for the presence of man. Man who in ancient times had relationships with these legendary figures, and who learned from them to build stone houses, the NURAGHES. But since man has forgotten, since no one remembers them anymore… the stories I mean, the ancient stories, the old tales with their characters, dreams and fantasies, witches, ghosts and… and the lies… yes, the lies, they, have not been seen anymore. But sometimes it happens that at the call of an ancient nursery rhyme, sung like an invocation, by the sound of an instrument, that they… the stories and their characters… start to live again, to materialize! Like… “a beautiful woman, who periodically appears in the squares and streets of Sardinia, when evoked by the singing of a magical nursery rhyme or by the sound of the launeddas, daughter of the wind and water… who protected the wells from the curiosity of children…”; “In sos dies de sas janas”, in the typical ritual of street theatre which, among the people, finds its natural occasion for magical performances, will evoke these ancient figures and, if assisted by the good welcome of the people, will recall to us ancient suggestions and truths of Sardinian popular culture. The show starts from a research on the magical traditions of Sardinia and focuses in particular on the figure of the Janas but the magical and mythological element in our island is also expressed through other important figures and masks famous throughout the world, which are an integral part of this study which from our territory then moves towards other parts of the island and encounters various elements: music, sounds and stories which represent the starting point of this new artistic path, an idea, a drive which leads us to search in these areas for our scenic motivations and the images which will become a show. It is not easy to face and stage these elements which, precisely because they are magical, are not part of the ordinary, so we immediately thought that the staging had to already have something extraordinary in itself, so they seemed to us to be immediately more appropriate the use of stilts, the structures and techniques of street theater and some particular technological solutions applied to costumes capable of recreating strong suggestions. This new show has in fact as its central focus the evocation of this magical reality that belongs to us, as Sardinians and as citizens of the world; a part of our life that we too often forget and that instead could represent the element of mediation between our living conditions in a hyper-technological and frenetic society and our human dimension made of real needs, emotions and hopes.
