The flags are out, the bunting too, and the red and white mascot Burlamacco is everywhere as Viareggio eagerly awaits the start of Carnival. The trees are heavy with oranges, the sweet fried dough, chiacchiere, are in the pastry shops - there’s excitement in the air!
Dating back to 1873, Viareggio’s Carnival attracts thousands of visitors each year to watch the enormous, intricate papier-mâché sculptures dance their way along the seaside promenade.
From September through March the Citta del Carnevale - a circular complex with 16 hangars - is a hub of energy for the artisan community using boat-making skills from Viareggio, and artistic creativity from Pietrasanta. Last year we learnt how they use newspaper, along with flour and water paste, to create papier-mâché floats.
But between the audience watching and the artists creating, there’s another community: hundreds of volunteers or 'figurants' who turn up to rehearse, rain or shine, each weekend, to form the colourful dancing troupes in front of the floats.
So Mike and I are here to revisit the LeBigre family on the 20th anniversary of their La Compagnia del Carnevale to learn why their 200 volunteers return each year, and what impact one creative project can have on the wider community.
For this episode we are also proud to collaborate with Celia & Enzo of Piazza Talk Lucca - a popular YouTube channel sharing how life is in Lucca, and in the Tuscan hills. Celia, a book restorer, and Enzo, a sea captain dived right in to volunteer behind the scenes with the Le Bigre family creating papier-mâché items for the float.
The flags are out, the bunting too, and the red and white mascot Burlamacco is everywhere as Viareggio eagerly awaits the start of Carnival. The trees are heavy with oranges, the sweet fried dough, chiacchiere, are in the pastry shops - there’s excitement in the air!
Dating back to 1873, Viareggio’s Carnival attracts thousands of visitors each year to watch the enormous, intricate papier-mâché sculptures dance their way along the seaside promenade.
From September through March the Citta del Carnevale - a circular complex with 16 hangars - is a hub of energy for the artisan community using boat-making skills from Viareggio, and artistic creativity from Pietrasanta. Last year we learnt how they use newspaper, along with flour and water paste, to create papier-mâché floats.
But between the audience watching and the artists creating, there’s another community: hundreds of volunteers or 'figurants' who turn up to rehearse, rain or shine, each weekend, to form the colourful dancing troupes in front of the floats.
So Mike and I are here to revisit the LeBigre family on the 20th anniversary of their La Compagnia del Carnevale to learn why their 200 volunteers return each year, and what impact one creative project can have on the wider community.
For this episode we are also proud to collaborate with Celia & Enzo of Piazza Talk Lucca - a popular YouTube channel sharing how life is in Lucca, and in the Tuscan hills. Celia, a book restorer, and Enzo, a sea captain dived right in to volunteer behind the scenes with the Le Bigre family creating papier-mâché items for the float.
A podcast where artists tell their stories through the materials they choose.
Elodie Le Bigre:
There's a big tradition of carnival, and you can see it also in the rhythm of the city and we really feel this energy from the people that surrounds us. In 2,004 we decided to start a new way of involving the figurines on the floats and that became, now something which is a part of the parade to create a show with the people, to make rehearsals, to teach them some of the show arts. 200 figurines will be acting in the parade. It will be 20 years of this way of doing the carnival.
Speaker 2:
I'd moved from London to Italy to Vireggio, and it was a gloomy old Sunday afternoon, February. I suddenly saw a person in a fluorescent pink rabbit suit getting out of their car, and I thought, oh, right. Okay. And then further down the road, there was a person, family dressed as dragons walking towards the seafront. In the supermarket, there were people in animal suits.
Speaker 2:
This was my first introduction to carnival.
Speaker 3:
If you come from other country maybe you cannot understand but the carnival for us is really important, it's a part of the life. We used to say that we have the, I don't know in English, corianderly in the blood because, you can see also from the outside the parade that you really enjoy, but if you are a part of the parade, you will enjoy much more.
Sarah Monk:
The trees are heavy with oranges. Glags with the harlequin mascot, burlamacco, are flying from windows, and the sweet fried chiakkare are in the pastry shops. There's excitement in the air. From September through March, the Chitur de Carnivale is a hub of energy and draws on boat making skills from Via Reggio and artistic creativity from Pietro Santa. In 2023, Mike and I talked to artists here about the floats and masquerades they build with newspaper and mechanical puppetry.
Sarah Monk:
But between the artist creating and the audience watching, there's another community, hundreds of volunteers or figurants who rehearse rain or shine each weekend and form the colorful dancing troupes in front of the floats. So we came back to find out why these volunteers venture out on cold winter days and what it means to them to be part of a company.
Mike Axinn:
We're also excited to announce our first collaboration with Celia and Enzo of Piazza Talk Luca, a popular YouTube channel sharing how life is in Luca and in the Tuscan hills. Like us, Celia, a book restorer, and Enzo, a sea captain, are passionate about culture and food. And we're going to explore Viregio carnival 24 with them.
Sarah Monk:
Can we invite you for coffee?
Sarah Monk:
Oh, I think we should invite you.
Mike Axinn:
We can fight about it.
Sarah Monk:
Good. Let's go. Yeah. Last year in Luca, they brought the smaller floats to Luca, and they did the walk.
Speaker 6:
There's really wonderful picture test of, I suppose, it's sort of 18th century of Carnavalier and Louvre, because I had no idea Carnavalier was a thing in Luca as well historically that actually then they gave up.
Speaker 8:
I remember as a child, there were puppies in the street. They were telling stories and was part of the everyday landscape of Palermo, for instance. Yes. And here, I remember that also we arranged used to export the floats because in the sixties, I think, I remember, I was in Naples, and, the main Naples imported the first from the ridge, and they were paraded on the seafront in Naples.
Mike Axinn:
When you see the carnival, there's sometimes 30 people on top on the float riding along with it, and then there's a couple of guys or women in the back, and they're pulling these levers. It's kinda boring for them after a while because they just kinda go like that. But for a child or somebody watching it, it's like it's alive.
Sarah Monk:
It's a little bit like circus in that everybody has to have every skill. I mean, not everybody does have every skill, but, generally, as a group of people, they will between them be welders and designers and painters and and other manual. People manual the extras.
Mike Axinn:
Vasilia and Enzo want to volunteer with La Compania del Carnivale creating the float. Sarah and I are keen to speak with the volunteers. 1st, we meet with the Labigra family who are celebrating 20 years of La Compania del Carnivale to find out more about this year's theme.
Corrine Le Bigra:
My name is Corinne Roger Le Bigre, and I come in Italy, 14 years ago.
Benjamin Le Bigre:
My name is Benjamin Baltazar Le Bigre, and I am one of the members of the Levigles family who's making floats here in Vareggio. The beautiful thing about Carnival is that it's really open to everyone. It's really cool, this melting pot of ages, of colors, and
Elodie Le Bigre:
I'm Elodie Labigre, and I'm a part of this, artistical family. The thing is that we try to make a very professional show with very nonprofessional people, And it's very nice because we don't search for particular skills, but we search for a kind of empathy and energy that, develops during these months of rehearsals. And that is a little bit of the magic of the carnival that comes out. So we called it, zbelia. It's wake up, but with intelligence artificiale.
Elodie Le Bigre:
But in fact, we said the fantastic history, it's kind of fable of alternative intelligence. So
Speaker 10:
Very cool.
Elodie Le Bigre:
Idea is we we have not made very super modern, robots. We didn't want to show it in this way, and we prefer to make it a little bit like a fable, so with retro future look. And there is this human navigator with it, and he fall asleep. So he forgot who he was because of, giving up too many things. But in the meantime, there were these robot creatures that evolved so much that they developed an alternative intelligence, which means empathy, more or less.
Elodie Le Bigre:
A little bit like the WALL E story, you know, from Walt Disney. They discover very nice things that humanity has done and that has forgot. You know? So the robots, I say wake up and remember who you were and what you have done in a positive way. You know?
Elodie Le Bigre:
So there are some little symbols. The big robots will have a book. We have chosen, the last part of the poetry from Kipling. If when he says, when you will be able to conceive your 60 seconds as a a minute to the present moment, you know, which we are losing because we have so many impulses that, you know, especially the the new generation. Real importance of every second, then you will be a man or a woman, my son.
Sarah Monk:
So you come back to being human.
Elodie Le Bigre:
Exactly. And there are plants, of course. And the the floats is full of trash and things that has been just produced to be consumed. But the idea is, that we should go to the essential. The nice thing that actually happened when we have made this kind of projects is that we never really know exactly what the problem is, let's say, and it becomes something that is very collective.
Elodie Le Bigre:
You know? It's a journey that you do together with the people. We are gonna start next week to do also the objects for the figurines. We have made some glasses, some masks, some things like this, and we decided to give a line of colors, accessories, and everyone does his own costumes. This year, we wanted to make a retro future look.
Elodie Le Bigre:
So there will be, like, 50 60 dresses, and they search the dresses in their closet or they go to the markets or the to the vintage stores.
Sarah Monk:
I really love that because it's using the recycling Yes. And also the discovery.
Elodie Le Bigre:
But it's more in our philosophy to recycle materials also because this is a work made with recycled materials with journal or cardboard or, you know, We try to recuperate also the structures, change them because, of course, we have to stay in a budget. After when we parade, it's just the celebration of what we have done during all these months together. Maybe it's because our family came from elsewhere, so we had to build the kind of community around us because we didn't have family here or, you know, we were like a circus, ourselves, but the people that worked with us became family. And it became larger and larger with all these people that came here and started to do rehearsal with us and to play our game. Because we say, for us, it's like playing a game, but it's very serious.
Elodie Le Bigre:
It's a serious thing in the fact that we think that it's very important to keep this way of doing things, which is sharing with others, and it's also part of what we could call the tradition. You know? Tradition is transmitting from a generation to the other, a thing that you learn, and some skills, but also experiences, but also emotions, but also building, memories together. It's a little bit our utopia utopic vision of, society. You know?
Elodie Le Bigre:
I had come back from the rehearsals home. I always think it's a miracle to bring 200 people together in the winter afternoon dancing or, you know, making theater or just being together from the age of 3 to 80, 90 because we also have people from that age that participate. Someone are poor, some are very rich, but they stay together. And in that moment, it's just all the energy that is put together to create something beautiful or something fun or something that will also give fun and, pleasure to other people because we always say it's for the audience.
Sarah Monk:
I bet over the winter months, it's really important Yeah. For people to have a focus and a routine and companionship and something creative to look forward to.
Corrine Le Bigra:
Yeah. Yeah. It's really related with the rhythm of the nature. Yeah. Because at the end of the carnival is the end of the winter, and you start the spring the spring, and they start life getting out again.
Mike Axinn:
So it keeps the people of Viareggio from going crazy.
Corrine Le Bigra:
Yeah. Look at me.
Sarah Monk:
She's very balanced.
Veronica:
I'm Veronica Vetsosi. I'm not from Viareggio but I live here since 2019. And I've always been a fan of carnival, and I've always dressed up in a costume and so on because carnival is a passion. Once you see it, it's one thing. But when you can be part of it, it's another different thing.
Veronica:
It's amazing because you're really part of something, and it's not just about dancing, smile, and so on, but it's an experience where you can discover something about yourself.
Sarah Monk:
What do you get out of the community here?
Veronica:
So we are, people that don't know each other, but you get to know more here in 1 hour per week with other people than maybe in a long life relationship or friendship. Because here, you have to face something that is unusual. And for example, you don't know someone but you have to do something with him. You have to pretend that he's your best friend or your mother or a cat, whatever. So it's nice.
Mike Axinn:
Is there anything amazing that's happened in your experience working with these guys.
Veronica:
You can see other points of view, and you can know more about your body and what you can do that maybe you didn't think you would be able to. You make people happy. So it's something amazing.
Speaker 12:
I love it from when I was younger and because it's a beautiful tradition of my family. My father worked for the carnival. Ah. Yeah. So I I like to make this big construction and, this choreography.
Mike Axinn:
And what about this year? What is the theme for this year?
Speaker 12:
Artificial intelligence. Yeah. So we have a robot, a big robot on the construction and a television, where is men who sleep. And in the most important places of the parade, the men will get up.
Mike Axinn:
What do you think about AIs?
Speaker 12:
I think it's good, but we need to be humans and not to abuse with, this eye. And you were
Mike Axinn:
calling What does that mean? What does that symbolize?
Speaker 12:
Yes. No. We have to say to the people.
Sarah Monk:
Wake up.
Speaker 12:
Yes. Wake up. Because we want to say to the people that we need to be human.
Speaker 13:
My name is Jacobo Crudelli. I'm in this troop, since, 211.
Sarah Monk:
Yes.
Speaker 13:
For me, it's my heart of Biaregino dock because in Biaregio Carnevale is a very special thing for our soul. And, in the Campania del Carmen Valley, we can be a clown. Our child interior child.
Speaker 10:
Maria Franca. And you're from I live in Viregio. Yes. And
Mike Axinn:
when did you join? When did you first come to Carnival?
Speaker 10:
3 years ago. I'm, young in this company because, my parents, work in this company and, ask to come in. And, I love this company because for me, it's a balm. It's a place where everything is possible. Without the judgment in total freedom is a fun, joy, and amazing.
Speaker 10:
I love this company.
Speaker 3:
Hi. I'm Gianmarco. Nice to meet you. Actually, I'm a seaman. I work on cruise vessel.
Speaker 3:
I started when I finished the high school, and then I continued for almost 18 years now. Yeah. Wow. I think I'm one of the oldest here. I joined when I was 18, so I was really young.
Speaker 3:
And I just knocked the door at the first hangar that I met. I remember Gilbert, the father of Elodie Sebastian and and Benjamin opened the door. I just talked with him, and, okay. Let's do
Mike Axinn:
it.
Speaker 3:
And the 1st year, so I think for around 7 here, I just did the movement of the floats. And then I changed, and now I'm in the company like a performer.
Sarah Monk:
What does the community of the company mean to you? This annual get together and
Speaker 3:
A lot of us think that this is like a family. If you come from other country, maybe you cannot understand, but the carnival for us is really important. It's a part of the life. We used to say that we have the, I don't know in English, koriyandol in our in the blood.
Sarah Monk:
I think it's so valuable for people who are going through stuff. You spoke about someone who'd been widowed or maybe they
Elodie Le Bigre:
Oh, yes.
Sarah Monk:
All sorts of loss and grief and illness people going through. It's it's
Elodie Le Bigre:
it's something that happened to us too, for example. And, that was the biggest engine, you know, to go on and to keep on doing things very big and, to give happiness to others when we were such in a very big loss. But it becomes very natural to go on and to because art is very powerful in this. But, also, this kind of art, which is community. That's why there are celebrations when you have a lawsuit.
Sarah Monk:
How long ago did your father die?
Elodie Le Bigre:
In the summer of 2016. And we had already, gave our project, which was the last one that we made together, and we did the carnival for 5 months after, you know. We worked, and we did everything with very powerful energy and, of course, putting everything together. Because in that moment, you understand that what you have done is collective.
Speaker 6:
My full name is Francesca Dinelli. I teach people how to communicate with horses in a natural way. I came here with my day, their work, my thoughts, and I went out every time with happiness in my heart. So because they are doing something which goes deeper, and so it's something wonderful because you see a lot of normal people. Nobody of us is doing, like, theater, dance, or whatever, but you feel that you are searching your dancer, your actress inside, and it's something really well,
Elodie Le Bigre:
what is the
Mike Axinn:
most surprising thing that happened to you from being in this group?
Speaker 6:
I came here alone and that was a
Sarah Monk:
lot of trouble. Everybody was there
Speaker 6:
on their own journey. So that was very, very nice for me. I came here and I felt a lot of different emotions and I was able to express them, but they didn't remain inside
Speaker 8:
of me.
Speaker 6:
It was a game, but it was a game that helped me to live better my days. I can't really explain why, but I think there's a time of emotions which is deeper than the time, normal time in in in the day in real life.
Mike Axinn:
You're being vulnerable when you do all these crazy things together.
Speaker 6:
Yes. That's the reason why you can come in touch
Mike Axinn:
with her.
Speaker 8:
My name
Corrine Le Bigra:
is Jean
Speaker 14:
Jean Ligo.
Speaker 8:
My alias is Mena.
Sarah Monk:
Oh, and, what is your day job? What do you do?
Speaker 8:
My job is, clown.
Sarah Monk:
Oh, okay.
Speaker 8:
I start with, dancing when I'm wise teenager.
Veronica:
Uh-huh. I
Speaker 8:
start with dance with hip hop. I study in Paris, time. After, I do theater, and after, I do clown.
Speaker 15:
My boyfriend is originally from Birrdio. We met in Florence some years ago, and he told me about Carnival, and I'd never had seen it. And he took me to my first Carnival, and I fell in love with it. We practice some on Saturday Sundays because it's a big group, and to get more of a an accurate, like, work together. I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker 6:
We split
Speaker 15:
it up the group to make it a little bit more personal, faster to learn our choreography and, like, how to have good attention on all of us.
Mike Axinn:
Is there anything about your experience that's been, like, surprising or transformative for you?
Speaker 15:
I'm typically an anxious a socially anxious person, and I have to say that the energy and the welcoming vibes is really awesome. And I think it's difficult when you are kind of a foreigner coming to a place to try and find a group of people, especially a small town. So having this, community has been really nice. I think that the fact that we can come here and kinda be silly and then, like, life isn't so serious, it makes me feel a little bit more comfortable to be myself in a way.
Mike Axinn:
You have a repertoire. You have to perform. Right?
Speaker 15:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how it works, you have, like, certain areas during the actual parade where there are judges who judge you or your performance.
Speaker 15:
And so you have, like, more relaxed time in between those points where you're taking the character, you're having a time of relaxation, but you're perpetuating that character. And then whenever you roll into the judging panel, you start to do your choreography or the performative aspect, which is what they're going to start doing.
Speaker 6:
2 weeks away.
Elodie Le Bigre:
Yeah. 2 weeks.
Mike Axinn:
No pressure.
Elodie Le Bigre:
No pressure at all.
Sarah Monk:
Well, it's shaping up beautifully.
Elodie Le Bigre:
Yes. So now I'm painting the yellow part missing, then I'm making a little bit of rust. I need to make it look a vintage robot, and, and then we pass on the other robot. They are putting paper on it to the finish the shapes. And then after these 2, then we will make all the finishing, of the float and make it look, beautiful.
Elodie Le Bigre:
This year, we have made some stamps to paint on the costumes with, some electronic and electric symbols with some colors that are good for the world look. And we have made also some, objects that they will wear, like special eyewear or some masks or some hats with papier mache, and that will give a little bit of unity to all the group.
Sarah Monk:
This your first year?
Speaker 14:
No. It's the second. I started last year and was, very, fantastic because they involve us in everything, with costume. And, we help, Elodie inside, and Benjamin help us to find in our way something that we have, but we don't know that we have.
Sarah Monk:
May I ask what you do in the daytime?
Speaker 14:
Yes. I make the nautical school. I am captain, but I was a seaman for a lot of years in a company that produce, computer for ship. And then I was for some years on board a yacht. And then since, 20 years, I work in anautical school as technicians.
Sarah Monk:
Fantastic. So you're really quintessential, the Arabian, carnivali by winter and nautical world.
Speaker 14:
Yeah. It's a passion.
Sarah Monk:
Enzo was a captain.
Speaker 8:
Oh. Captain. Yeah.
Elodie Le Bigre:
A real captain.
Speaker 8:
Yes.
Mike Axinn:
What does the carnival mean for you?
Speaker 14:
You find the real sense of life and what you are inside. If you want to sing in the middle of the street, you can because it's carnival and no one matter about this. I do also during the rest of the year, but, if you do during the year, people look at you and say, she's crazy. During Carnival, not And this is wonderful.
Sarah Monk:
How do you feel like the night before the carnival? Do you get nervous?
Speaker 3:
Okay. For the job that I do, I used to be around war. So in 17 years, I just missed one cardinal because I was on the ship because, this is for me much more important than Christmas, than summer. So when you are really close to the day of the parade, the first day of parade, you start to be, yeah, nervous and just so you feel. The night before here, there are a lot of people that are around, the hungers and looking around.
Speaker 3:
And,
Elodie Le Bigre:
yeah, you
Speaker 3:
can feel that something really good, beautiful start to almost to begin.
Sarah Monk:
And how's your costume coming along?
Speaker 3:
I'm not really, how would you say?
Veronica:
Focused on that. Yes.
Speaker 3:
No. No. I just bought something, and I hope that they're really good.
Mike Axinn:
Did you learn anything from the group? Did the group teach you something while you were also teaching them?
Elodie Le Bigre:
Yes. It's always an exchange. I learn a lot because every time you have an idea, when you have this confrontation with the people, then the idea develops and it takes its own shape and it becomes something new. It grows somehow, you know. The thing that is interesting is that everyone, finds a comfort zone, let's say, you know.
Elodie Le Bigre:
Then they're ready to do whatever the project takes, you know. And the very beautiful thing is the exchange of the energy that that we have. I don't stay too much with people in life, and this is an occasion for me as for them to stay together around an artistic project and to do some very exceptional thing, and every one of them can have some special characteristic. You really find out the uniqueness of, every person. We think that we have a lot of possibilities to express ourselves with our phones, with our things, but in fact, we don't have many occasion to express ourselves for real and, in a very authentic way.
Elodie Le Bigre:
And I think that this is one of the occasion in which something that maybe you keep hidden in you can come out in a very beautiful way.
Sarah Monk:
So thanks to everyone who contributed to this episode, especially Corinne, Elodi, Benjamin, and Sebastian of the Lobicra family, and all the artists, artisans, and volunteers of La Compagnie del Carnivale who made time to talk with us. Congratulations on your 20th anniversary. Thanks too to our collaborators, Celia and Enzo, whose video about their adventures volunteering you can see on YouTube at Piazza Talk Luca. As always, you can find photographs of the work discussed today on our web site, materially speaking.com, and on Instagram at materially speaking podcast. Thanks for listening.
Sarah Monk:
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