About this Event
This seminar (designed in collaboration with PerLA – Performance Epistemologies Research Lab, IUAV University of Venice) looks at genealogies of performance pedagogies and perspectives in blue dramaturgy. The talks will touch on interdisciplinary pedagogies and the emerging current of studies of “blue humanities” which engages with complex questions surrounding ocean and sea imaginaries.
Opening Remarks:
Barbara Faedda (Executive Director, Italian Academy)
Speakers:
Roberta Bernasconi (IUAV University of Venice)
“Threading Knowledges: Genealogies of Performance Pedagogies”
Bruna Bonanno (University of Milan)
“Offshore dramaturgy: How to Spin a Yarn”
Moderator and Organizer:
Piersandra Di Matteo (IUAV University of Venice; current Fellow at Columbia University’s Italian Academy)
ABOUT THE TALKS
Roberta Bernasconi
Threading Knowledges: Genealogies of Performance Pedagogies: Assuming performance as a site of learning, and through the analysis of interdisciplinary pedagogies developed between Europe and the United States throughout the twentieth century, the talk follows a trajectory from the Bauhaus to Black Mountain College, retracing genealogically the emergence of immaterial, embodied, and non-technically codified pedagogies that emerged at the intersection of visual arts, theatre, dance, and music. Through archival research materials, the talk explores the hybrid lineages of performance pedagogies, using them as a lens to identify an ecosystem invested in laboratorial and transdisciplinary, practice-based education.
Bruna Bonanno
Offshore dramaturgy: How to Spin a Yarn: Following what Laurent de Sutter (2011) calls an epistemology of piracy — a radical form of scholarly hijacking — this talk situates dramaturgy as a site where blue studies and performance can entangle. Moving beyond a hermeneutic paradigm that confines dramaturgy within land-centred thinking, the contribution advances an expanded pirate epistemology that unsettles dominant, terrestrially grounded conceptual frameworks and articulates pirate categories as alternative, offshore modes of perception.
PEOPLE
Roberta Bernasconi is a PhD candidate at IUAV University of Venice, co-founder of PerLA – Performance Epistemologies Research Lab and Visiting Research Scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center – New York (2026). Her research examines performance pedagogies from a genealogical perspective as transdisciplinary practices within academic institutions. She is co-editor of performance + pedagogia (2025) and has contributed to educational projects at La Biennale di Venezia and dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel. She was Program Coordinator for UNIDEEPistoletto Foundation and for the MA in Theatre and Performing Arts at IUAV University of Venice (2017-2023).
Bruna Bonanno is a dramaturg and PhD candidate at the University of Milan with a research project named Pirate Dramaturgy focussed on dramaturgical practices engaged with radical democracy and salt waters. Co-founder of “salmastra” (brackish) an interdisciplinary collective working with Sicily’s fishing communities, she is a member of PerLA – Performance Epistemologies Research Lab and works as assistant teacher in dramaturgy and theatre history at IUAV University of Venice. Currently, she has been a visiting researcher at ARIA (University of Antwerp) the Public Exchange Bureau at Deakin University (Melbourne) and St John’s University with Steve Mentz. Her latest dramaturgical project was recently awarded at the 2025 Venice Biennale | Teatro.
Piersandra Di Matteo is currently a Fcurrent Fellow at Columbia University’s Italian Academy; her project is "Tactile-hearing: Deaf knowledge in the Italian and American performing arts." She is a performing arts theorist, curator, and dramaturg. Her research spans contemporary theatre, the politics of voice and listening, curatorial practices, and accessibility in the arts. She is a member of PerLA | Performance Epistemologies Research Lab and SSH | Sound Studies Hub at IUAV University of Venice, where she teaches Curating Performing Arts.
Di Matteo has been invited to lecture and lead seminars at major international universities and research centers, including those in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Montréal, Amsterdam, New York City, Philadelphia, and São Paulo.
She is widely recognized for her long-standing collaboration with Romeo Castellucci, the Italian theatre director, as his theoretical collaborator and dramaturg in prominent theatres and international festivals such as Festival d’Avignon, Ruhrtriennale, La Monnaie, Schaubühne, Wiener Festwochen, Opéra de Paris, Staatsoper Hamburg, Opéra de Lyon, Bayerische Staatsoper, Dutch National Opera, Salzburger Festspiele.
She served as Artistic Director of Short Theatre Festival (Rome, 2021–2024) and Atlas of Transitions Biennale (Bologna, 2017–2020).
Her recent publications include A bocca chiusa. Effetti di ventriloquio e scena contemporanea (2024), the edited volume SPEAKING NEARBY (2024), Performance + Curatela (2021, with A. Sacchi and I. Caleo) In fiamme. La performance nello spazio delle lotte (1967–1979) (2021).
She is also editorial director of the Short Books series (NERO Editions) and Performance+ (Sossella Editore, Rome).
PerLA – Performance Epistemologies Research Lab is a research unit at IUAV University of Venice, founded in 2024 by scholars coordinated by Professor Annalisa Sacchi. The lab investigates performance through dialogue with multiple fields, including cultural studies, environmental humanities, and radical pedagogies. PerLA disseminates research through conferences, seminars, symposia, research projects, and public programmes developed with Italian and international partners, as well as cultural and artistic institutions. The name PerLA pays tribute to Perla Peragallo, a key figure of late twentieth-century Italian theatre.
Doors open at 2:30pm. Registration does not guarantee a seat; registrants are seated first-come, first served.
This event is in-person only.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Italian Academy, Columbia University, 1161 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, United States
USD 0.00
