Festival reflections from Turin

Running in a time frame that was almost parallel with that of the Malta Arts Festival was Piedmont's theatre festival Teatro a Corte, entitled as such because all artistic events were organised to take place within the royal residences of the House of Savoy in Turin and surrounding areas throughout the region.

The event did in fact grow out of recent developments in the tourism industry in the region as well as due to an increased valorisation of the historic residences. Thus the festival reflected - in the same way that the Malta Arts Festival did when it took us to out-of-sight courtyards and forsaken corners such as Ospizio in Floriana - a growing cultural trend that says that historic buildings are aesthetic monuments that can be experienced in a contemporary frame of mind and made relevant to a contemporary context, rather than stopping at observing them for their historic value. In this way, contemporary culture is lived through heritage rather than taken back to the past. And in this light, cleaned-up Turin is architecturally magnificently rich.

This year the Teatro a Corte festival, which ran through the month of July and whose first days I was witness to, seemed to revolve around a circus theme. This reflected the focus of the festival on its architectural surroundings, as circus allows for a flexibility of space as well as an ability to occupy designated spaces by shaping its act into that space. The opening of the festival was in fact a Dutch show, Pi-Leau, by Close Act, a street theatre performance that was held in the square outside the Royal Palace. With performers walking through the square on stilts, and costumes that amplified them, it was the air space above the audience's heads that was used, transformed into a space for aquatic imagery. Thus, right in the square where (in a city which is purported to be a cross-section for the axis of white magic and that of black magic) the equestrian statue portraying good is represented to be more powerful than that portraying evil, a battle between good and bad aquatic creatures was played out. However, as can be the danger with circus-art that fulfils only circus without becoming art, the dramaturgical line remained one-dimensional, without development. It was a spectacle of light and sound, but remained only that.

Thus the festival's opening week, which was based in the centre of Turin itself, followed a programme that included much street theatre and clownery, some in buildings converted to theatres such as the Cavallerizza Reale (Royal Cavalry), others in squares and surrounding streets. Macadam Piano, for example, was one performance where the pianist propelled his piano on wheels through the streets around the Piazza Castello.

Teatro a Corte is following the pattern of many festivals where big names perform alongside lesser known ones, where local upcoming professionals are given the chance to share the programme with award-winners. And because of the hefty sponsorships available to this festival this year, including the main sponsor Compagnia di San Paolo, a research institute defining itself as an agency at the service of society, the festival afforded some bigger names.

The highlight of the opening week was in fact Josef Nadj, leading theatre choreographer and director of the Orleans National Choreographic Centre whose work was awarded the 2006 Europe Theatre Prize for New Theatrical Realities. Mr Nadj was in fact the strongest magnet that drew the foreign theatregoers. The work he presented in Turin, Entracte, explored, in a disturbingly dark manner, mutability of forms, as the dancers allowed their bodies to take the shape of the live music they were dancing in parallel to, as well as each other's.

And because the festival has now absorbed the festival Teatro Europa, which ran independently for seven years prior to mergence in 2007 and is now being organised by the Fondazione Teatro Piemonte Europa, the events were a diverse representation of theatrical realities from across Europe.

Not all the names lived up to their reputation, such as reputedly leading British clown Nola Rae in her rendition of Exit Napoleon, which was over extended in its lack of dramaturgical development or engaging action. Others, such as French comedian Pattrick Cottet-Moine, whose sketches were entertaining in their comic precision of gesture and sound, or the Spanish clowns La Tal Con Leandre, were engaging in their articulation and respect towards form.

However, as can be discerned in such details as the choice of Close-Act rather than Mr Nadj for the opening, the overall artistic direction was subservient to popular demand in a way that compromised aesthetic quality. And the overriding impression of the festival, from what I saw of the opening and from what I can tell from the descriptions of the subsequent performances, is that magnitude and expensive displays of technological lush were set to draw the crowds. When it comes to culture, let us learn not to forget that an artistic eye should always precede business skills.