NEAMERA Theatre Company, which in Greek etymology means “new day – new being” founded in 2014 by Diana Costa (Italy) and Pablo Durán Rojas (Spain) continuing their acting research initiated with the masks of the Commedia dell’Arte.
Through educational processes aimed, with special focus, at community contexts with difficult access to culture, promoting cultural projects and activities in collaboration with other professionals in the sector.
Their work process is based on the use of masks as an expressive and creative element that begins with their creation from different materials (colored papers, cardboard, papier-maché, fabric, thermoplastic) to use on stage and as a pedagogical instrument.
Activities in the social ambit (integration of immigrants, therapeutic communities, preparation of masked groups for Carnival parades), didactic (schools, universities) and formative (theater schools, academies of performing arts), represent a very varied range where theatricality and materials are mixed in an attempt to respond creatively to the different concerns where they are developed with special attention on recovery and recycling. The poetic universe of masks awakens interest and curiosity in theater, art and the stage.
The company’s productions: Mr&Mrs Kraft – a story of paper masks (reversible masks), Glorious Visions (Full Masks), The Last Romantics (expressive half masks and puppet theater) and A Feather into the Wind (Commedia dell’Arte) have been previously performed and continue to be programmed in different theaters and festivals across many countries including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Iran, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Turkey.
Highlight some projects related to small communities:
- METAMORFOSIS I – cultural project on the concept of transformation from a theatrical and plastic perspective through the creation of imaginary creatures and subsequent photographic exhibition, which involved young people from two locations in the Sierra de Cádiz (SPAIN – 2023);
- WHAT CAN WE CREATE WITH CARDBOARD? – workshop on creation of cardboard masks in FEP – Festival of Ecological Theatre for Children and Youth (SERBIA -2023);
- Itinerant workshop project realised in the Austurland region as part of the BRAS – Theatre Festival for Children and Young People in East Iceland (ICELAND – 2023);
- SUPEREROI – artistic residency with socially disadvantaged children within the Festival in: v z b l, organised by Teatrul Basca, within the programme Timișoara European Capital of Culture 2023 (ROMANIA – 2023);
- THEATRE and CARDBOARD within NITFest – Nepal International Theatre Festival. Workshop for a group of young people who have combined the creative possibilities of working with cardboard with their cultural aesthetics; strongly rooted in masks (NEPAL – 2022);
- Cardboard mask-making workshop for a group of women from Hamedan, carried out in the context of the International Children and Youth Theater Festival (IRAN – 2021);
- KALEMLER – a theatrical project on the story of Yaşar Kemal for a group of young people from Mardin at the Cocuk ven Genclik Tiyatro Festival organised by the DRASED association (TURKEY – 2021);
- With PRÒSOPO PROJECT, from the griko “face, visage” on the study of masks from a theatrical, anthropological and artisanal perspective, NEAMERA is among the 62 Italian cultural companies that won the national competition FUNDER35. Realised in Grecìa Salentina (Puglia), an area of archaic carnival traditions, it involved international artists and scholars who use masks in their research and creation of performances (ITALY – 2018/2019);
- Itinerant workshops in the south of Chile performed at the FITICH – Festival Internacional de Teatro Itinerante por Chiloè Profund. Highlighting the permanence and work with rural schools in the Huar Island. (CHILE – 2016).