Paolo Grassi spoke of theatre as a collective necessity, and considered it a public service and a primary good of citizens, in the same way as firefighters.
The same belief motivated Tiziana Pirola – born in 1957, ‘like Miguel Bosè’ (cit.) – in her long journey first as an actress, then as an organiser of theatrical performances for children, and the continuous effort to connect these activities to the whole social fabric of the territory. That’s why even a reality that deals with culture, with its headquarters at the Auditorium in Piazza Libertà, is an active part of Bergamo’s trade.
Together with the Urban District of Commerce, we met Tiziana to let her tell us the story of her business.
“The dichotomy between commerce and art makes no sense: they have equal dignity and have always moved ahead together. Investing in art is substance!’ underlines Tiziana with the energy and facial mimicry that distinguishes her and that many in the city know well. And she continues: “Theatre is humanity, self-telling. It is what makes being in the world more pleasant. Like sitting around the table and commercial activities. There is no need for conflict. We must all strive together to create a better life.’
She made a decidedly unprecedented turn in the late seventies. At the time, Tiziana was studying law and worked for the notary Mangili. But – there is always a but in every passionate story – in the same building, upstairs, was Marco Rota’s theatre company. Since she was not the type to do only one thing at a time, at the age of twenty-four she started attending acting school.
Her teacher taunted her, telling her that she was too old for the theatre and that she had to understand if she really had the ‘vocation’. Shortly after, she left her secure job for something uncertain, and above all for a salary reduced to a third than that of the notary’s office.
“At the time, artists were considered to be seasonal workers in the agricultural world. There were no permanent contracts.”
Yet, determined and undoubtedly stubborn, she was an actress for ten years, also covering more organisational roles. ‘I had grown up with a master builder father. As a child I didn’t play with dolls, but I built houses with marble and mortar!’ she says proudly and with the face of someone who knows a lot. ‘I had grown up in a world of males and I understood that to make things work I needed a certain ‘operational intelligence’. I always had a calculator in hand. I’ve made VAT returns all over Italy,” she explains laughing.
In those years, she refined her technical and legislative skills, and in the mid-eighties she managed the Auditorium and the first performances. Shortly thereafter she created the Sezione Aurea cooperative with the main objective of accommodating all workers.
Tiziana is overwhelming, she speaks at the speed of light, with continuous digressions and anecdotes. ‘When I was with a group of people, everyone hated me – she says proudly- and on long journeys by car, when everyone wanted to rest, I talked. They said: you should be sent to a Swiss college!’
In these almost forty years of work she has had many teachers, some injuries, some important losses, but she maintains a tenacious will to take life lightly. For her, it is as if sometimes human beings forget that ‘You die. Everyone. Pride is useless.’
For Tiziana words are important and she chooses them carefully. Each with deep knowledge and sometimes having fun using the most elegant and obsolete ones to ‘trigger reactions’ in the listeners.
For her, theatre is a break that everyone should give themselves, ‘a moment of listening that you give yourself.’
Her dissemination, as well as storytelling, are for her a cultural responsibility for everyone.
This is why Tiziana goes out of her way to bring the theatre everywhere, to involve more and more audiences and travel companions, be they politicians, entrepreneurs, scholars or ordinary people.
To give space to the narratives, to tell the story and re-read it and to remind us that, in the theatre, everyone, audience and actors, have equal dignity.
The thirty-first edition of the ‘Theatre for Children’ festival will start on Sunday, of which she is still the tireless curator. While she energetically promotes the initiative, she already has her eyes turned elsewhere.
Next to her is Luca Loglio, a young artistic director of the Ravasio Foundation, with whom she recently created the Bergamo Puppet Museum, set up in the Palazzo della Provincia in via Tasso.
They insist on showing us the museum, and in the warehouses, crammed with care, we see puppets from different schools and from all over Italy. It is a moment of magic and we are all children again.
‘Do you understand? Culture is necessary because it is the means of freedom for all. It’s the practice of freedom.’
She opens her face with a big smile and lifts Maria Scatoléra, mother of Giopì and his alter ego in the form of a puppet, into the air.