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Dell’Arte International is the North American centre for theatre training, research, and performance of the actor-creator. Dell’Arte International seeks to create resonant works of theatre that are visceral, athletic and that engage the mystery underlying all experience.
Dell’Arte is made up of a professional touring company; a full-time professional training school offering MFA and certificate programs; the annual summer Mad River Festival; a youth academy; and study abroad programs.
As one of a handful of rural professional ensemble theatres in the United States, Dell'Arte is internationally recognised for its unique contribution to American theatre via its non-urban point of view, its 30-year history of ensemble practice, its work to push the boundaries of physical theatre forms in professional productions, and its actor-training programs.
It was founded by Carlo Mazzone-Clementi and Jane Hill in Berkeley in 1971 to bring the European physical training tradition to the United States and to develop actor-creators through training in mime, mask, movement and ensemble creation. A native of Padua, Mazzone was a childhood friend of sculptor Amleto Sartori, and Marcel Marceau's first Italian partner. As Jacques Lecoq’s assistant for eight years during Lecoq’s Italian sojourn, Carlo was part of the nucleus of artists who reinvented the Italian theatre, com-media, and mask work after WWII in Italy. He came to the US in 1959 and introduced Sartori's masks to America, conducting demonstrations with a young partner, Hovey Burgess. Carlo developed his teaching philosophy over many years, counting as his chief mentor/influences Jacques Lecoq, Marcel Marceau, and Jean-Louis Barrault.
Jane and Carlo moved to Northern California in 1972 to raise their young family in a non-urban setting. They started a summer Grand Comedy Festival in Eureka, California and held performances at the College of the Redwoods, while searching for a building to house the school. They found an old Odd Fellows Hall for sale in Blue Lake in 1974.
The Dell’Arte School opened its doors in Blue Lake, California in 1975 in the Odd Fellows Hall, and in 1976, Mazzone and actors Joan Schirle and Jon’Paul Cook founded the Dell’Arte Company with the goal of establishing a company/school-school/company along the lines of Jacques Copeau’s Vieux Colombier, and the hope to create a resident ensemble, the Dell'Arte Players Company, The first tour was in 1977. Artists engaged in the first production, 'The Loon's Rage,' included director and co-author Jael Weisman, designer Alain Schons, and actor Michael Fields, who continued as the nucleus of the new company. Donald Forrest joined in 1978.
Originally called the Dell'Arte School of Mime and Comedy, the School’s name was changed to The International School of Physical Theatre in the late 1980s as a result of the narrowing definition of 'mime' and a desire to investigate a broader vision of theatre and the work of the contemporary actor. The School now offers a one-year certificate program in Physical Theatre, a NAST-accredited three-year MFA in Ensemble Based Physical Theatre, plus summer workshops, and residencies in Bali and Denmark. School Directors have included Carlo, Jon'Paul Cook, Alain Schons, Ralph Hall, Peter Buckley, Jane Hill, Daniel Stein, and Joan Schirle.
Dell'Arte has received Critics Circle awards in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, and has been the official US theatre representative at international festivals including the Venice Biennale (Italy), the Arhus Festival (Denmark), The Festival of Five Continents (Venezuela), The VIth International Festival (Uruguay), the Curitiba Festival (Brazil); in North. America at EXPO '86 (Vancouver, BC) the Lincoln Center Festival, the Philadelphia International Movement Theatre Festival, the San Francisco New Vaudeville Festival, the TCG National Conference.
131 H Street
P.O. Box 816
Blue Lake, CA 95525
USA
info@dellarte.com
http://www.dellarte.com/default.aspx
Here are few videos reflect some of their work.