Re-Shaping Space, Re-Making Theatre: The Case of Teatro Valle Occupato Between Activism and Art Intervention

In June 2011, a group of artists who identified themselves as ‘lavoratori e lavoratrici dello spettacolo’, occupied an historic theatre in Rome – the Teatro Valle – with the aim to prevent its privatisation or closure. The Valle’s occupation sparked that of other Italian theatres and symbolic spaces involved in speculative building and neglect. The idea of occupare (‘occupy’) was articulated as occuparsi (‘take care’). Started as a sector-based protest, it grew into the nation-wide Occupied Theatres Movement (OTM) that brought together artists working across different disciplines and approaches. Some of the occupied theatres still exist today as independent art spaces, while the Valle was evicted in 2014, after three theatre seasons that encompassed various types of art forms (from theatre and cinema to dance and music). Under its occupation, the space of the Valle was re-shaped through the occupiers’ art interventions, which show how activism in this context was underpinned by multiple forms of artistic practices.

Firstly, the theatre was renamed ‘Teatro Valle Occupato’ and a logo was created which they used as a sign on the front doors. It was a pictogram representing a man carrying away a no-entry sign. The bar signifying the denied access read ‘Valle’, written in capital letters with a reverse ‘E’. If a prohibition sign indicates an action that must not be performed (i.e. ‘no access is allowed in this space’), its alteration representing its own removal overturns this message (i.e. the reclamation of the ‘occupation’ of the space). The logo was widely used as the occupied theatre’s profile image on social media and in paper documents, and it became a recognisable symbol of the Valle Occupato’s struggle.

Another form of spatial intervention was the decoration of the theatre’s stairs. On the front side of each stair riser, red stickers were applied in the form of letters that composed political messages. Articulated as ‘formulas against’, the messages addressed topics such as the rejection of racism and sexism. The occupiers chose to deliver their messages in English, partly because of the international attention that the Valle’s occupation received. It also indicates the artists’ intention to address similar struggles outside Italy, such as Les Intermittents du spectacle in France and the global Occupy movement.

The occupiers’ interventions importantly exceeded the space of the theatre, trespassing onto its immediate surroundings. Emblematic in this case was the red bench that the occupiers placed opposite the theatre, by the stop for bus 116. A piece of paper was attached to the bus stop, indicating the number of the bus, and on which the Valle’s logo was also visible. The intrusion of the occupation onto the public space was expressed here in the form of an invitation to the bus passengers to ‘stop’ at the Valle. This intervention can be seen as an attempt to establish connections between the internal space of the theatre and the external spaces of the city, making the borders between the two more porous.

One of the interventions that was performed in the space of the Valle established explicit connections with the theatre’s history: the occupiers’ systematically alternating disguise of actor Leopoldo Fregoli’s bust at the Valle, who performed there in 1898. Playing with the fact that Fregoli was known for being a great ‘trasformista’, the occupiers would periodically change the appearance of the bust by adding different items to it. They also created a photo gallery on the Valle’s Facebook profile page, in which 65 pictures of Fregoli’s different ‘camouflages’ were shared. Fregoli’s disguises varied from male to female and queer characters. His bust was arrayed with accessories, including a Jamaican hat with dreadlocks, a megaphone, and working tools. The photo gallery was entitled Scegli il tuo Fregoli trasformista per un teatro che cambia!.

The gesture of disguising the bust was endowed with a message to the public to re-think the theatre and take a fresh approach. In the form of a ‘visual invitation’ to make a choice, the message to the public juxtaposed the transforming images of the artist’s bust with a message of change about the Valle’s future. Fregoli’s ‘revival’ served the purpose of making the theatre’s history relevant to the occupiers’ cause and epoch. More generally, the collective practices developed within the Valle aimed at inviting the public to consider the uncertain future of the Valle as a matter of public interest, while presenting the theatre in a different light. Through practices that adopted a collaborative and inclusive approach, artists from various fields engaged the public in the creative construction of new narratives on what theatre and society indeed are about.