Workshop 2024

Emotions aloud is a project of the Province of South Sardinia, in collaboration with the Monte Linas Library System, the “Faustino Onnis” Municipal Library of San Gavino Monreale, the N.1 “A. Loru” Comprehensive Institute of Villacidro, the N.2 “Dessì” Comprehensive Institute of Villacidro, developed and implemented by the Vox Day Cooperative. The laboratory activity takes place within the Neanche Gli Dei Literary Festival and Author Meetings, whose IV edition will take place at the Lazzaretto in Cagliari next July. The project is divided into two distinct laboratories to enhance reading aloud: the first aimed at adults (librarians and/or educators) and the second aimed at children of nursery and primary schools.

The workshops for the promotion of reading are conducted and created by Patrizia Viglino, a professional and scholastic theater expert. During the workshops, texts such as “The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly” by Luis Sepulveda, “The Way of Evil” by Grazia Deledda, “Telephone tales” by Gianni Rodari, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry will be used, among others.

The First Workshop (12 hours), aimed at librarians and educators, offers an intensive training course to develop skills in reading aloud through the study of simple but fundamental breathing techniques, voice modulation, study of the color associated with the emotions you want to express. In addition, basic notions of diction and pronunciation will be proposed, study of the vocal sound and its placement in space, logical understanding of a text and study of the narrative structure.

The practical study of techniques, with exercises on texts chosen together or proposed by the expert, will be accompanied by parallel work on listening and understanding unexpressed or restrained emotions, often manifested through physical signals or unconscious gestures and behaviors to reach the management of physical-sensorial communication in a conscious way, laying the foundations for two fundamental elements that will be used in the subsequent workshop to be carried out with the children: listening to emotions, the necessary attention to spontaneous behaviors, the intuition of encouraging and constructive suggestions rather than merely corrective ones.

The meetings of this first workshop for the preparation of the adult work team will also have the objective of choosing a text or a series of texts to propose to the very young participants of the second workshop, after having practically experimented with their expressive potential and having analyzed the logical, cultural and ethical contents to be transmitted.

– The Second Workshop (20 hours), aimed at boys and girls, with an adaptation of the work depending on whether the subjects come from Nursery or Primary School, aims to follow each participant individually but in a group context that stimulates sociability and positive comparison. The work will have a predominantly playful nature and priority will be given to the psychophysical well-being of the participants through games and activities suitable for stimulating interest in storytelling, understanding stories or nursery rhymes and reading aloud.

The aim of the work conducted by the expert, with the collaboration of the previously trained adult work group, is to enhance individual skills in reading aloud, improving pronunciation and scanning for the purpose of understanding the narrated text. Importance will also be given to the use of the right volume based on the context, to the study of the creative interpretation of texts, to the forms of expression of emotions through the understanding of meanings. Finally, space will be given to the physical and dynamic communication of the word. In this way, the workshop will be useful to overcome any emotional blocks, overcome shyness and insecurity by making participants confident in their abilities and trusting in their learning times, in an inclusive sense. The workshop is open to subjects with disabilities or who manifest particular needs and intends to achieve results both on an individual and relational level.

At the end of the course, the group of educators and the children will be able to perform a reading of the chosen text as a final test of the results of the two workshops.