Teresa Pomodoro the soul of NO´HMA
Biography
Teresa Pomodoro was a playwright, author, actress and the founder of Spazio Teatro NO’HMA: at the same time the offspring, the place and the state of mind shaped by Teresa’s extraordinary artistic and intellectual journey.
From Puglia, where she graduated in Literature and Philosophy and specialised in classical and christian archeology, in the early 60’s Teresa moved to Milan where she conceived her own theatre, born of the extraordinary talent and sensitivity that immediately became apparent as a vocation for the Arts and the Stage.
In the artistic circles of the city, Teresa met Giorgio Strehler, and in the 70’s joined his “Spazio Parola”, dedicated to contemporary authors. “Those were the days of discovery”- she later reminisced - “a time of exciting personal, cultural and artistic encounters, paramount years when I discovered that all true learning takes place at the meeting with your Maestro, and with the many such Maestros that shape our lives.” It was also the time of several of her plays, brought to the stage at Piccolo Teatro and other venues, and performed by great actors such as Franco Graziosi, Valeria Moriconi and Alberto Lionello.
This experience elicited in Teresa Pomodoro a desire to create a Theatre that would be open to all cross-overs, a cultural experience in the service of social issues and themes usually marginalized by mainstream culture. In her mind there took shape an idea of theatre meant as an explosion of Thought and Life, Feelings and Instinct: a light penetrating the darkness of banality and meanness, a hymn to the primeval sides of human nature that need to blend with reason for a future of solidarity and hope. For Teresa, the natural outcome of all this was the foundation of an independent Theatre, the non profit association NO’HMA, which would later find a home in the splendid context of the building in Via Orcagna.
Between the foundation of NO’HMA, the carrying out of the restoration of its seat, at the site of the abandoned building of Milan’s potable water works, Teresa determinedly brought forth her idea of Theatre, to the acknowledgement and recognition of wide public acclaim and numberless institutions.
Not only did she infect with her passion and creativity all performances, festivals and events taking place at Spazio Teatro in via Orcagna, she also personally embraced social loneliness and emargination, bringing her theatre amongst outsiders and turning them into the true protagonists of her art. “Theatre in Prison”, a memorable work dealing with rehabilitation within total institutions, came to life at the Prison of Milano-Opera and San Vittore, where over the years she put on stage plays by Brecht, Shakespeare, Aristophanes, in performances open to the public, all of them extraordinary in the messages and meanings conveyed, in the scenic, scenographic and theatrical mise-en-scene, and performed by hundreds of actor-inmates. This noble and paramount experience also produced several publications, “Le Quinte dell’Anima”, “Il mio teatro nudo” and “La vita offesa”.
The idea of spectators as an integral part of the scene has always been a central tenet in the cultural and theatrical workshops at “Casa della Carità A. Albiani” in Milan. The extraordinary event at Ponte Lambro was performed by the Romany guests of Casa della Carità. This in turn brought forth the commitment and the carrying out of educational actitivies for teachers, social workers, school pupils, graduate and post graduate students from the universities of Milan.
In this same spirit of immersion within a Theatre throbbing with life, and indistinguishable from it, taking it over and expressing it in the most diversified and empathic forms, since the 90’s Teresa brought on the stage at NO’HMA several projects in the theatre, music and culture, experimenting avant-guarde communication and art forms, devising a theatre in constant change, in which nothing is predefined and fixed.
A Theatre aiming to abolish established codes and well-trodden pathways in order to find new channels of communication, more respectful of humanity and of the role it should play in reality: a goal that Teresa strived for in her acting roles (from Medea to Don Juan, from Mother Earth to Bachita to Mother Theresa) and in her work directing talented and experienced performers, musicians, composers, as well as in her writings: “In writing” - she said - “I feel along with my characters, as an actor taking on different roles, uncovering my many inner selves, revealing myself as an ever-changing portrait, which shatters and becomes whole time and time again, in its innumerable proustian facets, questions, desires and searches, in an endless process..”
The playwriting of Teresa Pomodoro is a mirror of thoughts and feelings, fully immersed in current reality and in the images of our time; it is contemporary writing, an irony that becomes humor, and culturally thought-provoking, a curious and disenchanted look at human kind, which is the protagonist of the inner world of “Selves” to which Teresa lent a voice, and that display a thousand, and one, faces.
In the artistic circles of the city, Teresa met Giorgio Strehler, and in the 70’s joined his “Spazio Parola”, dedicated to contemporary authors. “Those were the days of discovery”- she later reminisced - “a time of exciting personal, cultural and artistic encounters, paramount years when I discovered that all true learning takes place at the meeting with your Maestro, and with the many such Maestros that shape our lives.” It was also the time of several of her plays, brought to the stage at Piccolo Teatro and other venues, and performed by great actors such as Franco Graziosi, Valeria Moriconi and Alberto Lionello.
This experience elicited in Teresa Pomodoro a desire to create a Theatre that would be open to all cross-overs, a cultural experience in the service of social issues and themes usually marginalized by mainstream culture. In her mind there took shape an idea of theatre meant as an explosion of Thought and Life, Feelings and Instinct: a light penetrating the darkness of banality and meanness, a hymn to the primeval sides of human nature that need to blend with reason for a future of solidarity and hope. For Teresa, the natural outcome of all this was the foundation of an independent Theatre, the non profit association NO’HMA, which would later find a home in the splendid context of the building in Via Orcagna.
Between the foundation of NO’HMA, the carrying out of the restoration of its seat, at the site of the abandoned building of Milan’s potable water works, Teresa determinedly brought forth her idea of Theatre, to the acknowledgement and recognition of wide public acclaim and numberless institutions.
Not only did she infect with her passion and creativity all performances, festivals and events taking place at Spazio Teatro in via Orcagna, she also personally embraced social loneliness and emargination, bringing her theatre amongst outsiders and turning them into the true protagonists of her art. “Theatre in Prison”, a memorable work dealing with rehabilitation within total institutions, came to life at the Prison of Milano-Opera and San Vittore, where over the years she put on stage plays by Brecht, Shakespeare, Aristophanes, in performances open to the public, all of them extraordinary in the messages and meanings conveyed, in the scenic, scenographic and theatrical mise-en-scene, and performed by hundreds of actor-inmates. This noble and paramount experience also produced several publications, “Le Quinte dell’Anima”, “Il mio teatro nudo” and “La vita offesa”.
The idea of spectators as an integral part of the scene has always been a central tenet in the cultural and theatrical workshops at “Casa della Carità A. Albiani” in Milan. The extraordinary event at Ponte Lambro was performed by the Romany guests of Casa della Carità. This in turn brought forth the commitment and the carrying out of educational actitivies for teachers, social workers, school pupils, graduate and post graduate students from the universities of Milan.
In this same spirit of immersion within a Theatre throbbing with life, and indistinguishable from it, taking it over and expressing it in the most diversified and empathic forms, since the 90’s Teresa brought on the stage at NO’HMA several projects in the theatre, music and culture, experimenting avant-guarde communication and art forms, devising a theatre in constant change, in which nothing is predefined and fixed.
A Theatre aiming to abolish established codes and well-trodden pathways in order to find new channels of communication, more respectful of humanity and of the role it should play in reality: a goal that Teresa strived for in her acting roles (from Medea to Don Juan, from Mother Earth to Bachita to Mother Theresa) and in her work directing talented and experienced performers, musicians, composers, as well as in her writings: “In writing” - she said - “I feel along with my characters, as an actor taking on different roles, uncovering my many inner selves, revealing myself as an ever-changing portrait, which shatters and becomes whole time and time again, in its innumerable proustian facets, questions, desires and searches, in an endless process..”
The playwriting of Teresa Pomodoro is a mirror of thoughts and feelings, fully immersed in current reality and in the images of our time; it is contemporary writing, an irony that becomes humor, and culturally thought-provoking, a curious and disenchanted look at human kind, which is the protagonist of the inner world of “Selves” to which Teresa lent a voice, and that display a thousand, and one, faces.