I GIULLARI DI PIAZZA

I GIULLARI DI PIAZZA ITALIAN FOLK MUSIC DANCE AND THEATRE OF COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE PRESENTS:   A DAY IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE    Special educational program created for Caramoor center for Music and the Arts in 1993 and still in residence there.   Featured on ABC TV:  http://youtu.be/qXSMdLhZdAU   SPRING SEASON 2017: April 17, 19, 21May 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, 25, 26June 5, 6, 7, 8, 9   Experience what thousands of school kids have enjoyed at Caramoor. A Day in the Renaissance takes students to Italy in the sixteenth century with songs and dances, street theater, music, masks and banners and a few words from Will Shakespeare.  I GIULLARI DI PIAZZA, (the Players of the Square) comes in colorful costumes, with a special children’s workshop of Italian Renaissance Instruments, music, dance and Theatre of the Commedia dell’Arte. The actors will explain Italian Renaissance history, talking about the painters, art, sculptures, explorers, music and theatre. The musicians will demonstrate instruments as recorders, viola, violin and renaissance guitar, will demonstrate the masked characters of the comical Renaissance theatre of Commedia dell’Arte including Pulcinella, Arlecchino, Don Giovanni and the woman Ricciulina, and  also  demonstrate a sword fight in Renaissance style. They will teach the song with gestures typical of the Commedia character Ricciulina, and the popular Renaissance dance Tarantella del ‘600 from the 16th century. The program also features the children’s production of :  THE ADVENTURES OF DON GIOVANNI AND HIS SERVANT ARLECCHINO a comic opera based on a 16th century Neapolitan Commedia dell'Arte manuscript, the play features the hilarious shenanigans of Arlecchino, his fiancee "Ricciulina" (a servant who falls instead for his master Don Giovanni), and the servant Sebastiano, Ricciulina’s brother, who favors his sister match with the wealthy Don Giovanni rather than Arlecchino. But as usual Don Giovanni does not keep his promises and does not marry Ricciulina who remains a servant and at the end marries the poor Arlecchino. As in the opera, Don Giovanni is punished in the end when he meets a ghost (giant puppet) and he’s taken to hell by the devil in a "dance macabre".   The company is formed by seven artists from this  CAST:  Alessandra Belloni, Artistic Director, singer, percussionist, dance, John La Barbera, Music Director, Renaissance guitar and mandolin, Mark Mindek, Arlecchino, James Karcher, Don Giovanni, actor /sword fighter, Susan Eberenz, flutes/recorders, Joe Deninzon and Mara Gerety, violin,  Max Mc Guire Actor, (Zanni), Cynthia Enfield, Actress/singer as Ricciulina, Francesca Silvano Dancer