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Tuesday, December 9, 2014

3 of 3: The Initiatory Magic of Franca Rame

Dear Earthlings:

Have you enjoyed visit one and visit two? We sure hope you have. Here goes the third one:

The Initiatory Magic of Franca Rame, cont'd

On this third visit the gifts are more magical, the lessons are deeper, and the threads come together in an interwoven tapestry. Now I have a vast experience in the interdependent dynamics of co-creativity in a wider horizon of amorously inclusive collaborative alliances where dyads, albeit open, still count. As a sexigenarian, I’ve

explored a vast array of relational possibilities in my life. I have learned to love the person beyond gender because I have satisfied all my cravings for same-gender love. I’ve come to the age of wisdom when one is at peace with premature recycling. And I’ve organized my emotions around entire networks of interwoven relational tapestries where fluidity abounds, negotiation is an art, and safety keeps people in balance. I also have a vast experience in collaborative writing, with men, with women, in same-age groups and dyads, and across generations. I would not be where I am if Franca had not opened her door to me in that far back 1984.

I do know why Franca Rame inspired me to explore the co-creative dynamics of her dyadic relationship with Dario, and why her initiatory power brought magic to my life.

It was a very wise decision indeed. I pledge to honor her magic and am humbled by her initiatory power.

SerenaGaia, a.k.a. Serena Anderlini-D’Onofrio, PhD

Playa Azul, Puerto Rico, 2014

Works Cited and Consulted

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio. “Franca Rame: Her Life and Works.” 1985. Theater: 17: 1: 32-39.

______ . “Franca Rame donna e attrice.” (Translation.) 1990. Il Ponte: 65: 6: 99-110.

______ . “When Is a Woman’s Work Her Own? An Interview with Franca Rame.” (Translated by Tracy Barrett.) 1991. Feminist Issues: 11: 1: 22-52.

______ . “From The Lady Is to be Disposed of to An Open Couple: The Theater Partnership of Franca Rame and Dario Fo.” Atenea: 20: 1: 31-52. Republished in Walter Valeri ed. Franca Rame: A Woman on Stage. West Lafayette, Indiana: Bordighera Press, 2000. (183-221.)

______ . “Holistic (Dis)Organizations: Gaia at Alcatraz, Italy.” 2005. Rhizomes: 10 (Spring) http://www.rhizomes.net/issue10/index.html. Also in Utopia Matters: Theory, Politics, Literature and the Arts. Vieira, Fatima and Marinela Freitas eds. Editora da Universidad de Porto.

Note: To read and download more of SerenaGaia's scholar activist work, visit here page on Academia.edu: https://uprm.academia.edu/SerenaAnderlini

Dear Earthlings:

This is the end of the article. It's been a joy to be back on this blog site. Thanks for staying with us. Now we have much more to come as our teamwork book on Ecosexuality goes into production. All about this amazing collection at these links:
http://orgasmicearth.org/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ecosexuality-Notes-for-an-Orgasmic-Earth/1393535414244382

Enjoy the love of the universe and all dear ones. Stay tuned and check our social media websites.

All good wishes for a joyful Holiday Season.

Namaste,

SerenaGaia

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

2 of 3: The Initiatory Magic of Franca Rame

Hi again dear Earthlings:

as promised, here goes the second visit of my mentor and initiator Franca Rame.

Enjoy!

The Initiatory Magic of Franca Rame

The second visit was on the occasion of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Dario, in 1997. His awareness of his wife’s talent and lack of embarrassment at publically recognizing it turned on my interest in them again. I never had the shadow of a doubt that the Prize was deserved. I just realized how often collaborative efforts are overlooked in the arts and humanities. And was

impressed with his eagerness to redress this. I thought, “well, perhaps now he knows his wife is an author, and they’ve co-evolved as a dyad to feel comfortable about it.” This compelled my attention for an article on the integration of their respective creative energies in works that neither could have managed without the other. The result was the article “From The Lady Is to Be Disposed of to An Open Couple: Franca Rame and Dario Fo’s Theater Partnership.” In Open Couple, I felt an affinity for Franca’s character, and her obsessions with her partner’s affair-persons. Their pheromones were in the air, and “pussies” were hiding everywhere: in a shoe, on the soap bar. She sensed their sadness and felt called to rescue them, as I also have in my early experiences of amorous inclusiveness. This guided me to appreciate the rhetoric of polyamory, a responsible form of non-monogamy that assuages competition and rivalry. The lovers of one’s lovers are called “metamours,” or lovers by interposed person.

In the interim period between then and now, I became interested in the creative output of their son Jacopo Fo. I designed a research project around the intentional community

of Alcatraz, visited repeatedly and wrote about it. I was curious: “how would someone growing up in a theater family handle communal life?” As I found out, Jacopo invented Alcatraz as the answer. It combined the joy of living in nature with the expanded sense of “family” that theater companies are organized around. It offered education in the arts of loving and sexual expression within a closed dyad. And training in the arts of keeping one’s personal ecosystem healthy and well balanced. It was for me a step in the path of exploring forms of sexual fluidity and amorous inclusiveness that respect the integrity of dyadic relationships, and their respective cultural variants. That resulted in the article “Holistic (Dis)Organizations: Gaia at Alcatraz, Italy,” in the open-source journal Rhyzomes, 2005. All of this helped me assess a cross-cultural understanding of intentional and open lifestyles and eventually coalesced in my overarching interest in Ecosexuality.

To be continued a week from now. Come back for the "second visit" on December 2, 2014.

Namaste,

SerenaGaia

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

1 of 3: The Initiatory Magic of Franca Rame

Hi dear Earthlings:

"Long time no see," as the sage said. Yes, I'm back and I bring you news of one of my

mentors and initiators: late actress, writer, activist, and senator Franca Rame, much missed, also wife and lifetime collaborator of Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo, who dedicated the prize to her.

This article was a request by fellow Italianist Donato Santeramo, for the first (of many i hope) collection of writings about Franca Rame. I accepted. It was also the third time she visited my life. She's welcome back any time, and the article will appear in three "visits" here too. Enjoy the first one!

Thanks for your patience. I am well and happy to be back. Much more good and exciting news to come. Namaste.

The Initiatory Magic of Franca Rame

Franca Rame is coming back into my life. For the past three decades, she has inhabited my imagination in one way or another, as we shared the same living planet. As a young woman, I looked upon Franca and Dario as an enviable dyad: two people with equally magnanimous souls and talents, yet differentiated enough to grow together as they grew apart. It was difficult for me to behold that. I felt the danger of flying too close to the sun, as the daughter of a successful and honest politician whose first wife imploded in their relationship as a conventional couple. I was searching for alternatives, and, as a young woman and mother, Franca represented a role model for me when I was healing from my own mother’s early death from cancer. Later, I learned to diversify my emotional investments and overcome the fear of same-sex love. As a happy sexigenarian, I welcome this visit. I remember feeling the void the day from Facebook I realized the ultimate recycling had happened for Franca. May this first in-absentia volume initiated by younger colleagues be the time for me to reflect, in my wisdom years, on the wisdom of engaging with Franca when my career started.

I am grateful to the collection for hosting my 1984 interview with Franca Rame, a long- winded “confession,” oral-history style. It may be a measure of the divine feminine manifesting its power to

know that, in late life, Franca became a senator. I imagine her ambling the halls of Palazzo Madama where I felt intimidated when I was young. It is sad that she felt compelled to resign, in the same way that my father had felt compelled to reject executive positions in his own time. I’m happy to write this introductory reflection as I’ve become more cognizant of Franca’s initiatory role in my life. Aside from the sadness of parting, this third visit is an occasion to confirm Franca Rame’s legacy as initiatory and magic.

The first visit came about three decades ago, in the mid eighties, when my focus was separating Franca’s work from Dario’s, for recognition of hers, in a gender dynamic infected with male dominance as a cultural standard. I wanted her to admit she was an author and she wouldn’t. “Why did I do it?” I’ve often wondered. It was dissertation time, and I felt called to something that far exceeded my comprehension. I didn’t dare to presume I could interview Franca. And yet she wanted it. I was healing from my family tragedy, as the beautiful and auspicious couple my parents formed had imploded with my mother’s demise. I was exorcizing her destiny as I removed myself from the position of emotional recipient for, and physical obstacle to my father’s healing from that trauma. At 27, with a young child of my own, I had picked up the pieces of my life and moved from Rome to Riverside, California to get my doctorate. As dissertation time came about, a grant funded my trip to Florence for the appointment with Franca. My blended family at the time was composed of my young Italian daughter and the fellow student who was my French partner. They were waiting for me back at UCR. In retrospect, I was moved by my own path of seeking a place of co-creativity out of the masculine shadow of patriarchal domination and fear of inadequacy.

The train from Rome to Florence ran in the dark night. I was alone in the compartment when my mother visited. The apparition was very tangible. I kept my cool even as it occurred to me I was probably hallucinating. She said: “this is what you were meant to do. Go for it! It will save your life.” I’ve rarely talked about it. Yet it was this visit that summoned my strength as I met Franca. I’m now 5 years older than Franca was at the time, and 12 years older than my mother ever was. The results of that moment of meeting were the article on Theater that acknowledged Franca’s entity as a co-author, the interview in Italian on Leggere Donna, and its translation into English on Feminist Issues.

To be continued a week from now. Come back for the "second visit" on November 25, 2014.

Namaste,

SerenaGaia

Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, PhD

Author of Gaia, Eros, and many other books about love
Professor of Humanities, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez