INCANTI is an initiative of CONTROLUCE Teatro d’Ombre (Shadow Theatre) born in 1994 with the support of the Regione Piemonte and the cooperation of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art. Its objective from the outset has been to present in Turin and Piedmont an overview of research and tradition in the field of international puppetry. In addition the Regione Piemonte, over the years, has received support from the Compagnia di San Paolo, the Fondazione CRT, the City of Turin, Turin Theatre System (STT), the Turin Foundation of the Teatro Stabile (TST) and the Prospettiva Autumn Festival, the City of Grugliasco and the Teatro Ragazzi e Giovani Foundation of Turin.

INCANTI‘s aim is the spread and promotion of puppetry in Piedmont and in Italy, mainly for an adult audience, but along with the evening programmes it has developed a section aimed at schools, which takes place in collaboration with the City of Grugliasco, and two educational projects: The shadow theatre workshop at Rivoli Castle takes place for the eleventh time, and the Project INCANTI Produces (PIP), which has a dual-purpose didactic and artistic training now goes into its fourth year.

PIP Project: a group of students or young professionals of puppet theatre under the guidance of an internationally recognized director, creates a new show and presents it at the Festival each year. The project aims to encourage young people's access to the cultural resources of theatre and it is supported as a special initiative by the Regione Piemonte and the Municipality of Grugliasco, with the collaboration of the Istituto per i Beni Marionettistici e il Teatro Popolare. It has achieved considerable success in three editions that have taken place since 2008, with Eva Kaufmann, Neville Tranter and Frank Soehnle as guest directors.

Shadow theatre laboratory: INCANTI pays particular attention to research and experimentation in shadow theatre, organizing workshops since 2000 in collaboration with the Education Department of the Castello di Rivoli with some of the most interesting shadow players in the international scene including Wajang Wiya (Indonesia), Cengiz Ozek (Turkey), Laconica la conical (Spain), Richard Bradshaw (Australia), L’Asina sull’Isola (Italy), Tadeusz Wierbicki (Poland), Valeria Guglietti (Argentina), Norbert Goetz (Germany) , Athos Danellis (Greece), Alba Zapater (Spain), Kim Eun Young (South Korea).

The continuous growth of audiences -coming not only from the metropolitan and regional areas but also from other Italian cities and from abroad- validates INCANTI‘s initial hypothesis of opening a window on international puppet theatre aimed at adult audiences in Turin.

Over the eighteen years of its existence, INCANTI has explored both the dramatic and the narrative possibilities of puppetry, looking both at old traditions and at modern experimental work and at the combination with other media. It has evoked endless possibilities, tackling themes and issues that are sometimes delicate, from war to religion, myth or politics, and playing on the sensitive strings of man and history from unusual points of view.

In 2010 the inclusion of a part of the INCANTI program in "Prospettiva", the Autumn festival of the Teatro Stabile of Turin, has been a further recognition of INCANTI’s success as well as a recognition of Turin as a benchmark for European puppet theatre.

INCANTI 2011

The theme of INCANTI 2011 edition is “Puppet Theatre and History”. The relationship between Puppet Theatre and History has been the subject of a three-year project that culminates this year to coincide with the celebrations for the 150 years of Italian Unity. Religion, war, civil strife, political issues have been directly or indirectly focused on in performances offered in the programmes of the last three years of the festival. Shadows, objects, glove, string and other puppets were called upon to "talk" of history – everyday history as well as History with the capital H, combining remote events with immediate current issues. It is all dealt with in a meaningful way, each time leaving a vivid impression.
This year the main surprise comes from the U.S.A., a historical group with the ability to affect the here and now: the Bread and Puppet Theatre make their debut in Italy at the Teatro Carignano in Turin, with their last show about the soldier Manning accused of passing confidential U.S. government information to Wikileaks and held in solitary confinement for months. Peter Schumann, founder of Bread and Puppet in the sixties, will participate in an open meeting on the relationship between theatre and history with other personalities of international theatre.
Not only the U.S. but "the Americas" are present this year with groups also from Cuba and Canada. From Cuba a piece of musical history, Teatro de las Estaciones presents "Por el monte Carulé", a show on "Bola de Nieve", nickname of Ignazio Villa, singer, songwriter and pianist, probably one of the most brilliant musicians of the Caribbean island and a genuine icon of what is distinctly Cuban. Les Sages Fous, from Canada, bring a whiff of madness with their "Cirque orphelin".
In addition to programming shows, since 2008 the activity of the festival has included production and promotion. On the occasion of "Italy 150" the artistic direction has invited four young artists working with traditional Italian stock characters to tell about the Italian “Risorgimento” in their own way and with their puppets, Pulcinella, Gianduja and others. This is the Popular Theatre Project which run parallel to the other shows each day. Appropriate to the celebrations of the Unity of Italy, the opening performance of the festival will be "Locomotiva 1861" by the company Cà luogo d’arte. Additionally, the Project INCANTI Produces (PIP) 2011 will have as guest director Giulio Molnar. He will work with a group of artists on a burning issue with "Barricades". The shadow theatre workshop at the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art will be led by Paulo Ferreira of the Belgian company Clair de Lune.
Another special feature of INCANTI 2011: In addition to the venues of the Teatro Stabile of Turin and the Casa del Teatro, the festival will be hosted this year in unusual spaces where normally theatre is not played. The idea is to bring puppet theatre to historical places in order to trigger off that spark between place and performance, which has been always a wonderful variant of the theater. So this year Incanti will also take place at the Regional Museum of Natural Science and the Villa della Regina.

Incanti brings the forms of an ancient and universal art, which is able to talk today with the most modern technologies and to be open to renewals, to fascinate with the transversal language that touches experimental theater, music, visual arts, dance: Incanti, besides following the always fascinating traditional paths, in recent years has brought us research works of an envolving and intriguing Figure Theater.
The theme of the last three editions, Puppet Theatre and History, is symbolic in showing how this theater, for its versatility and ability to deal with different themes, must be followed with interest and how much through its means of communication and itsexpressive strings can leads to scenic and dramaturgical unexplored territories. Furthermore the festival does not forget an essential high education component: the Project Incanti Production continues its path of advanced training with Giulio Molnar, skilful creator of that form of pedagogy conecting actor’s work with the presence of objects in the theatrical play.
Important feature of this many-faceted reality of festivals that makes up the richness of our region, Incanti brings once more its very personal identity characterized by a sensibility that has been able to build, trough the richness of diversity, original fields of creation and expression.

The INCANTI Festival, in its eighteenth edition, once again makes a wonderful offering with its programme devoted to the wonders of puppet theatre in its historic perspective, and, at the same time it gives the public of Turin and Piedmont a highly qualified overview of directions in research and traditional productions, both national and international.
The Controluce Association, with competence and innovative capacity as always, ensures the quality and variety of work presented, confirming its collaboration with many individuals and institutions that have accompanied it for years.
I am particularly happy to have the opportunity to contribute to a cultural offering of such high quality, which is aimed at a wide audience, catering for an adult public and presenting initiatives for young people. Even training sessions, promotion and production are given their place..
As is appropriate, the usual spaces of the Teatro Stabile of Turin and the Casa del Teatro Ragazzi e Giovani, will host the festival again.
Also confirmed and continued is the successful collaboration with PROSPETTIVA, the Teatro Stabile of Turin Autumn festival, the third edition of which will pay tribute to the 150th anniversary of Italy and therefore will host offerings closely linked to the theme of this year's festival, Puppet Theatre and History.

It 'a real pleasure for me to see this year renewed the partnership between the festivals Prospettiva and Incanti and this satisfaction increases even more when I realize that this partnership promises to be even more dense and intertwined: it will not be, in fact, only a matter of shared spaces and logistical synergies, but also a fascinating thematic coincidence. Prospettiva150 will focus on "foreigners at homeland", including in this definition all those who can not find a role or position within his own country (Carbonari, ghettoized minorities, revolutionaries, opponents to the system, etc..), and all the shows Incanti will include at Prospettiva program are in some way attributable to this file rouge. The Cuban company Teatro de las Estaciones will tell the story of pianist Ignacio Villa Fernández, the Canadian Cirque orpheline will guide us trough the dreams and nightmares that animate their clandestine garden of waste and garbage, Giulio Molnar will afford the shapes and functions of an universe made only of objects and Antonio Panzuto, thriug the notes of the Flying Dutchman by Wagner, moves animals, mermaids, singers and characters of all sorts among the vegetables and bottles of a refrigerator-theater. Summit of this path will be, however, the show at the Teatro Carignano of the historic community Bread and Puppet Theatre, who will dedicate their performance to the "foreign" Bradley Manning, the American militar and computer expert who has been jailed for leaking thousands of confidential documents to Wikileaks, thus revealing to the world some of the darkest pages of recent international history.