Zahr Teatër (Italy)

I am Mateo Çili, albanian actor, director and musician based in Italy.

Zahr Teatër expresses the need to build a serious and rigorous working group, for creating theatre performances, work demonstrations and didactics, but must of all, a theatre that is alive.

Like all the good things, my decision to make theatre happened casually. I passed the audition for the Academy of Dramatic Arts in the Veneto region, in Italy: from then theatre and I never abandoned each other.

My first master was Alberto Terrani, the Academy’s teacher and director, a classical actor famous in the 60’s and 70’s; then Mamadou Dioume (Peter Brook’s actor), the actors of The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards; Odin Teatret’s actors and director. The books also contributed largely on my apprenticeship.

I think that theatre is first of all a collective artistic expression, and like any form of art, it becomes part of the artist’s life: it’s not only his work, but his path to reach through art, the understanding of life itself.