What does it mean for theatre to dialogue with discomfort and illness? What results, transformations, discoveries, revelations in terms of language, working methods, professionalism? And if, by falling ill, theatre essentially cures itself, what verifiability of artistic spin-offs is there on the theatrological level? And of therapeutic spin-offs on a scientific level? These are the themes to which the meeting "La malattia che cura il teatro" (The illness that cures theatre), on the occasion of the presentation of the book of the same name (AA.VV., La malattia che cura il teatro. Esperienza e teoria nel rapporto tra scena e società, edited by Andrea Porcheddu and Cecilia Carponi, Dino Audino Editore, 2020) that collects the results of the conference organised in Bolzano by Teatro la Ribalta in October 2019.
Antonio Viganò trained at the Piccolo Teatro School of Art in Milan and at the École Jacques Lecoq in Paris and approached dance with Carolyn Carlson and Julie Anne Stanzak. In 1984 he founded Teatro La Ribalta with Michele Fiocchi, for which he directed shows for children and youths, winning five ETI Stregagatto awards. Between 1995 and 2002 he realized three shows with the Compagnie de l'Oiseau-Mouche, the first European theatre company formed by professional actors with disabilities. He directed in Russia at the Young Theatre in Omsk, in France at the Centre Dramatique Le Grand Bleu in Lille, in Switzerland at the Theater an der Sihl and at the Schauspielhaus in Zurich. He lectures at Universities, Theatres, Higher Education Schools and Masters Degrees, including most recently the Master's Degree in Theatre in the Social sphere at the Sapienza University of Rome and the Master's Degree in Theatre Entrepreneurship at the University of Bologna. In 2009, he settled in Bolzano, where he founded the Academy of Arts for Diversity and set up an integrated professional company that produces works of high artistic value.
Since 2010 he has been organizing the multidisciplinary theatre review 'Heretical Bodies' dedicated to the themes of diversity and the multiple possibilities of being an actor.
In 2015, the National Association of Theatre Critics awarded him the Critics' Prize. In 2018, together with the company of Teatro la Ribalta - Kunst der Vielfalt he received the Ubu Special Prize "for the quality of artistic, creative and political research in often marginal areas and with capillary attention to diversity".
