Artistic residence, cultural center of production, studies and international high education. The Mama Umbria International was founded in 1990 by Ellen Stewart (founder and artistic director of the Teatro La Mama in New York) and pursues exclusively cultural and artistic purposes. Guided by the Ellen Stewart’s initial idea, it believes that art and culture can contribute to overcoming the limits and barriers of communication, which reduce imagination and creativity, and which are effective means to transmit transmitting social and current requests. From the beginning, the Mama Umbria is strongly committed to promoting exchanges and collaborations between individual artists and groups of different nationalities and backgrounds, attention to the new generations. It carried out numerous activities: theatre productions, curation of Festival and events, workshops with internationally known artists teachers, art exhibitions, film conferences. It has designed and implemented an advanced training program in the field of theatre for over twenty years: an International Symposium on Directing, a Master for Actors and an Intensive Course in Theatre Writing, in which teachers and tutors of international standing are invited (among them: Andrei Serban (Romania), Lisa Kron (USA), Akiko Aizaw a (Japan), Basil Twist (USA), Jean-Guy Lecat (France), Annie-B Parson (USA), Oh Tae-Suk (Korea), Anne Bogart (U.S.), Theodora Skipitares (U.S.), Ong Keng Sen (Singapore), Tina Landau (USA), Vito Taufer (Slovenia), Richard Schechner (USA), Ivica Buljian (Slovenia), JoAnne Akalaitis (USA), Meng Jinghui (China), Lois Weaver/Peggy Shaw (USA), Meredith Monk (USA), Romeo Castellucci (Italy), Leigh Fondakow ski (USA), Ping Chong (USA), Hjalmar-Jorge Joffre Eichorn (Bolivia/Germany), Luca Ronconi (Italy), Marco Martinelli (Italy), Dijana Miloševic (Serbia), Baba Israel (USA), André de Shields (USA), Erik Ehn (USA), Marco Calvani (Italy)/ Neil LaBute (USA), Elizabeth Sw ados (USA), Karin Coonrod (USA), John Moran (USA), Melanie Joseph (USA), Yoji Sakate (Japan) and Dr. Fadil Jaf (Iraq), Mac Wellman (USA), Kw esi Johnson (USA), Estelle Parsons (USA), Vít Hor?ejš (Czechoslovakia), Dan Safer (USA), Kristin Linklater (USA), Paul Binnerts (USA), Nancy Gabor (USA), Belarus Free Theatre (Belarus), Hjalmar Jorge Joffre-Eichhorn (Bolivia/Germany), Roberto Varea (Argentina), Jessica Litw ak (USA), Motus / Enrico Casagrande And Daniela Nicolò (Italy), Chen Alon (Israel), Catherine Filloux (France/USA), Sergei Tcherkasski (Russia), Brett Bailey (South Africa), Mohammad B. Ghaffari (Iran), Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (USA), Lee Breuer and Maude Mitchell (USA), Basil Tw ist (USA), Sanjoy Ganguly (India), Nube Sandoval/Bernardo Rey (Colombia), Marianne Weems (USA), Yoshiko Chuma (Japan), Tian Mansha (China), Martha Clarke (USA), Mac Wellman (USA), Chiara Guidi (Italy), Caden Manson (USA), Motus (Daniela Nicolò and Enrico Casagrande) (Italy), Moisés Kaufman (Venezuela/USA), Lee Brock (USA), Sam Trubridge (New Zealand), Stefanie Batten Bland (USA), Krzysztof Garbaczew ski (Poland), Ellen Maddow and Paul Zimet – The Talking Band (USA).) It has always welcomed groups of different nationalities to offer them the time and space to create and work on artistic projects, both at the beginning of their conception, and at the end of the production. Its works have been presented in important festivals and theatres in Italy, including the Venice Biennale, the Teatro la Pergola in Florence, the Festival of Gibellina and Erice in Sicily, the Festival of Cultures in Arcidosso in Tuscany, also participating in various exhibitions abroad. Since 2011 it organizes the Mama Spoleto Open, a special fringe event of the prestigious Festival dei 2 mondi. Mama Umbria is a founding member of the Centro Italiano dell’ITI – Istituto Internazionale (Unesco) and it’s part of PAIR-Performing Arts in Residency, a European network of artistic residences, established thanks to the support of the European Community. Since 2015 it has been recognized as one of the 5 artistic residences in Umbria by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the Umbria Region and, always recognized at ministerial and regional level, it has been part of C.U.R.A. Centro Artistico di Residenze Umbre since 2018. Together with other local associations, since 2012 it manages and organizes the Creative Hub Shipyard Oberdan, a municipal space used as a theatre, an interdisciplinary cultural center of aggregation, participation and training which is addressed to the local community, with a particular attention to the new generations. A regenerated and alternative space in which young people work to help to design the cultural and social architecture of the cities of tomorrow. The “Ellen Stew Art International Award” was among the most important projects it/she founded, which is awarded bi-yearly to an artist or a company that are particularly distinguished for having conducted a theatrical activity that promotes social change, the participation of communities and the involvement of young people. It collaborates with the Municipality of Spoleto and with many local and national associations, and internationally with many facilities both in Europe and around the world, including the Mama ETC Theatre in New York, the Culturehub of New York and the Seoul Institute of the Arts in South Korea.
