From September 7th to 13th, ALTRE VISIONI returns, the 9th edition of the counter-festival of theatre, music and dance in the woods of Coltano, curated by ANIMALI CELESTI Teatro d'Arte Civile.

A week of meetings, workshops, internships, and performances that will transform the Coltano Biodiversity Park into a residential campus for artistic research and experimentation immersed in nature.
A unique experience that involves artists, university students, and people from vulnerable backgrounds, such as psychiatric patients, as well as volunteers, trainers, special education teachers, and professionals in general.

From morning until late evening, between the Coltano Biodiversity Park, Il Nuovo Fontanile, and the Medici Villa, visions, experiences and research paths will come to life that will put bodies, fragilities and creative possibilities at the centre through meetings that will involve artists, university students, people from fragile contexts, such as psychiatric users, but also volunteers, trainers, support teachers and professionals in general. The settlement in the forest will be aimed not only at co-working, exchanging, and co-designing, but also at questioning its own methodologies.
The program of OTHER VISIONS is divided into four sections: Pazzi d'autore, Intrecci, workshops and internships, and meetings.

PAZZI D’AUTORE

At Il Nuovo Fontanile “Pazzi d'autore”, with artists from the ANIMALI CELESTI Teatro d'Arte Civile company, it consists of an immersive tour consisting of three works and a dinner under the stars. From Monday, September 7th to Thursday, September 10th, every evening from 6:30 pm to 11:30 pm, CELESTIAL ANIMALS will accompany the audience with appearances, poetic forays, and short performances inspired by the writings, poems, and scores of people the company has met regularly throughout the year at psychiatric laboratories. The first three evenings, from September 7th to 9th, are reserved for organized groups; the evening of Thursday, September 10th is open to the public (reservations recommended).

Each evening opens at 6:30 pm with “Sconcerto per voci suoni e scribocchi”, born from the scores of Monica Morelli and created through the musical arrangements of Ilaria Bellucci and Modern Art Collective, with a staging by Alessandro Garzella. This will be followed at 9:30 pm by “Aspettando l'aurora”, by Francesca Mainetti with poetic texts by Aurora Vannucci, while at 11:00 pm Alessandro Garzella, Satyamo Hernandez and Michelangelo Ricci will present “Ode elettrica a Pasolini”, a work that intertwines word and memory in an electronic sound environment to return to the visions and contradictions of Pasolini's universe.

INTRECCI

On Friday, September 11th, the ALTRE VISIONI project will be presented in Intrecci, a section dedicated by ANIMALI CELESTI, a civil art theater, to the hospitality of like-minded artists and companies. The aim is to share common practices and visions alongside differences with the public for one evening. At 6:30 pm at the Coltano Kaminteatro Biodiversity Park and ProgettoAutismo – PAFVG present “Incantesemas (From the Last Row)”, with Andrea Brugnera, music by Francesco Ricciarelli and direction by Andrea Mancini. The show was born from the history of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Autism Project and from memories, chronicles, and testimonies of parents and autistic people. The choir dimension becomes a form of collective narrative. At the center is not the individual performer, but a community that recounts its journey: 22 sequences touch on the themes of birth, the perception of autistic status, the clash/encounter with institutions, conflicts within the family, loneliness and resilience.

At 9:30 pm, at the Villa Medicea in Coltano, there will be a close encounter with the world of one of the most sensitive interpreters of Italian theatre, Danio Manfredini, winner of four Ubu Awards, as well as other prestigious awards, who has become a master for an entire generation of artists. Manfredini will donate to the public the reading of the outline, composed at the end of the nineties, of “Divine”, an ERT – National Theatre production, a text freely inspired by “Our Lady of the Flowers” by Jean Genet, accompanied by the storyboard of the original drawings, made at the time, which tell the parable of Divine, born Louis Culafroy, a young boy who runs away from home to lead a life as a transvestite in Paris.

The evening continues at 11:00 pm, again at the Parco delle Biodiversità, with Nerval Teatro and “La Buca” by Maurizio Lupinelli and Elisa Pol: a final piece of Beckett's work, which has concluded the almost decade-long study process dotted with other landing points represented by previous productions dedicated to Samuel Beckett. Carlo De Leonardo and Maurizio Lupinelli bring to the stage the results of the research process involving the actors and actresses of the Permanent Laboratory of Nerval Teatro. Carlo De Leonardo, a Ravenna-born actor with a disability, and Maurizio Lupinelli, starting with Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days, and Krapp's Last Ribbon, reinvent Beckettian situations and characters through a theatrical game that thrives on improvisation, spontaneity, and growing stage awareness, conveying the whimsical and surreal essence of Beckettian characters.

MEETINGS

Alongside the shows, ALTRE VISIONI offers a complex program of Meetings, to transform the festival into a space for discussion on the themes that run through the project.

It begins on Thursday, September 10th at 3:30 pm, at the Biodiversity Park, with the roundtable discussion “Basaglia ora – Constraints, passions, ailments”, coordinated by Francesca Mainetti and dedicated to contemporary desires and problems, with psychologists, psychiatrists, artists, and mental health professionals. Following this, the photographic exhibition “Attori di/versi” by Michele Lischi will be inaugurated, dedicated to the people who have passed on knowledge and practices that today form the basis of the work of the hosts and users of the CELESTIAL ANIMALS theatre workshops.

On Friday, September 11th at 11:00 a.m., in collaboration with REACT, there will be a public discussion on design networks between female artists with and without disabilities – and between poetic identities, bureaucratic barriers, and the risk of opportunism – entitled “Art and/is Disability – Disability and/is Art?”.

From Friday 11th to Sunday 13th September at 5.00 pm, the festival also offers “Agorà 2026: the limit between shortcomings and infinity”, a daily space for reworking, thought and dialogue coordinated by Giuls Paoli / CELESTIAL ANIMALS, with Carlo Cellai (psychologist), Lorenzo Donati (theatrical critic of “Altre Velocità”) and Rodolfo Sacchettini (theatrical critic and co-director of “La Falena”). The topic of limits is addressed as an obstacle but also as a threshold, a place of awareness, transformation, and possibility. Starting from viewing the shows, the day's workshop experiences, and interviews with campus students and artists participating in OTHER VISIONS, we will try to highlight how physical, mental, cultural, and social limitations in art and life are also sources of fruitful perspectives.

The Agora will also continue to live every evening after the program, as an informal space for conversation and meeting between the public, artists, and women artists.

WORKSHOPS E STAGES

OTHER VISIONS is, in addition to a space for vision and listening, also for training. Young students, university students, healthcare users, educators, teachers, and citizens will meet in a place that will connect different generations, abilities, and identities. The Biodiversity Park will be transformed into a real residential campus, and the educational dimension will run through the entire project.

From Friday 11th to Sunday 13th September, in the morning (9.30am-1.15pm), there will be the Masters and Daisies Laboratory at Il Nuovo Fontanile, led in relay by Ilaria Bellucci (CELESTIAL ANIMALS civil art theatre), Maurizio Lupinelli (Nerval Theatre), Satyamo Hernandez (AEDO – Art Expression Holistic Disciplines), Ilaria Fontanelli (Geometry of Clouds), Francesca Mainetti, Roberta Moneta and Valeria Battaini (Teatro19), and Piero Cherici (Diesis Teatrango).

Also near the Nuovo Fontanile, on the same days, in the afternoon (3.00-4.45 pm), there will be training and research internships. The internships will alternate “The Shadow of the Figure” hosted by Alessandro Garzella and Francesca Mainetti, “The Free Zone – Theatre as an Encounter with Him” hosted by Satyamo Hernandez, “The Soul of the Woods”, a theatre workshop between nature, music and imagination hosted by Daniele Giuliani / Teatro Nucleo in collaboration with Modern Art Collective, and “The Dress I Wear (The Imagined Body)” hosted by Ornella D'Agostino/Carovana SMI.

The training program concludes on the evening of Sunday, September 13th with the return of the experiences gained during the workshops, which will transform the Coltano forest into a vibrant and vibrant scene, where theater, music, movement, and nature will converge.

EQUIDISTANZE

In parallel with OTHER VISIONS 2026, a further project will take place on Saturday, September 12th and Sunday, September 13th. This project will see six companies in residence in Coltano, participating in a national initiative organized by ANIMALI CELESTI, a civil art theater with the support of the Ministry of Culture – General Directorate of Live Entertainment, and in partnership with over 20 organizations that promote the accessibility of disabled artists: Equidistanze. The program includes the creation of six shows by partner companies of the project, configuring itself as the Tuscan stage of a national tour that offers works of particular artistic and civil value (info on the website animalicelestiteatrodartecivile.it).

Prenotazioni: prenotazioni@animalicelestiteatro.com oppure online sul circuito ticket.it

• SINGLE TICKET 10 € for each show
• PROMOTION DAY TICKET (with admission to the three shows) 15 €
• PROMOTION DAY TICKET FOR THURSDAY ONLY’ SEPTEMBER 10 with admission to the three shows + dinner 30 € (reservation required by writing to prenotazioni@animalicelestiteatro.it)
• CAMPUS REGISTRATION: access to all workshop events and internships from September 10 to 13 (shows excluded) € 50 euros
• DAY CAMPUS REGISTRATION: access to all one-day workshop events and internships (excluded shows) euro 20

Information:
info@animalicelestiteatro.com
www.animalicelestiteatrodartecivile.it

https://www.animalicelestiteatrodartecivile.it/in-programma/altre-visioni-2026-ix-edizione/

OTHER VISIONS, now in its ninth edition, is produced with the support of MiC, the Tuscany Region, the Municipality of Pisa, the Pisa Foundation, Pro Loco Coltano, UniCoop Firenze – Pisa members' section in collaboration with ASL Nordovest Toscana, the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Pisa, Il Nuovo Fontanile, Cavalieri Consapevi, Teatri delle Differenze, and REACT.
the project is part of a multidisciplinary Cantiere of theatre, music, dance, performing arts that connects the counter-festival ALTRE VISIONI (Coltano - PI June and September) with TRANSITUS (Lucca – July) and VINCANTA (Vinca - Fivizzano – MS – August).