Shaping Stories through Words and Images

In the magnificent southern courtyard in Palazzo Te , the author Giorgio Fontana reads two tales from the One Thousand and One Nights : The Merchant and the Genie and The Three Apples. Meanwhile, the painter and illustrator Alessandro Sanna sketches scenes from each story on his drawing tablet, projecting them in real-time on the wall behind the stage.

As Fontana starts reading, the audience quickly understands that the One Thousand and One Nights is a mysterious and multi-layered work of literature. It's a collection of tales incredibly rich in events, twists and turns; its multilevel nature is visible not only in the narrative, but also in the character and geographical structure.

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The story creation process takes centre stage . The main frame story features Scheherazade holding on to life by keeping her newly-married husband, the cruel Shahryār, wanting to hear more tales from her; by raising his curiosity, she knows that he won't execute her. In The Merchant and the Genie , a merchant offends a demon and promises him his life; on his way to the demon, he meets three old men, who decide that they will tell their own story to the demon in exchange for a third of the merchant’s life. In The Three Apples , Ja’far asks the caliph to pardon his slave and offers a story in return of the favour.

The value of the storytelling in the One Thousand and One Nights does not, of course, just lie in the story itself: tales can save lives, be traded, be given as rewards and treated as lessons. They have an immediate, incredible power , they draw the complete attention of the listener and make them stop doing whatever they are doing. Such value is built through a recursive, original and self-making process. As Fontana puts it, everything in One Thousand and One Nights is a story and generates stories and the performative nature of the event is a evidence of that: Sanna's beautiful illustrations come alive much like the tales themselves, in a heartfelt and impactful show.