DAUGHTER OF THE FACTORY

di e con Silvia Viviani
produzione Gledališče Glej

Silvia Viviani (Mantua, 1988) began her theatrical training as an actress at the Accademia Teatrale Campogalliani (Mantua) under the guidance of Laura Torelli (Piccolo Teatro – Milan). In 2008, following a scholarship, she was invited to the New York State Theatre Institute (NY, USA), where she focused on musical theatre and actively participated in the company’s productions.
Alongside rigorous physical and vocal training, Silvia continued her artistic research with renowned masters such as Tage Larsen and Eugenio Barba – Odin Teatret (Denmark), Rena Mirečka – Grotowski Institute (Poland), Pronina Galina Victorovna, Antonio Fava, A.T.I.R. Milan, Giorgio Rossi, Paolo Nani, Matteo Spiazzi, and Giovanni Fusetti. During these years, she also collaborated with various theatre companies including Teatro all’Improvviso, Teatro Potlach, Milton Fernandez, and Segni d’Infanzia. Additionally, she worked in local television as a host and voice actress, and took part in short films, commercials, and web series.
Silvia studied singing for several years, exploring musical theatre, vocal improvisation, and choral singing under the guidance of Francesco Antimiani, Diego Barrios Ross, and Ute Wassermann. Singing has increasingly become an integral part of her artistic projects. For a few years, she practiced aerial silks under Branko Potočan and enjoys playing the ukulele and accordion.
Since 2012, Silvia has been active in Slovenia. From 2015, she has been recognized as a freelance actress by the Slovenian Ministry of Culture.
Her proficiency in the Slovenian language has enabled her to participate in numerous productions with theatres and cultural associations such as Gledališče Ane Monro, Kolektiv tretja roka, Andrej Rozman Roza, Ravil Sultanov, Barbara Bulatovič, Gledališče Lalanit, Mladinsko gledališče, Gledališče Glej, Il Rossetti Teatro Stabile FVG.
Silvia took part in the last years in different performances who travelled most relevant European festivals for street theatre and performative arts.
Since 2018 Silvia has been leading the Italian theatre group Maschere Nude at the University of Ljubljana, where she not only directs the pedagogical path but also oversees the staging of productions, including L’esclusa/Izključena, PAUSA, Pillole di poesia, Roba, Di sogni, fiori e città – a tribute to Italo Calvino, Operette morali and Studio Duse – a modern and brave interpretation of live and opus of the greatest Eleonora Duse.In the last years she has been toruing as actress with Attraverso il bosco (Teatro all’Improvviso, Mantua) touring Italy and Switzerland as well as the Italian reprises of Tea for Five – The Opium Clippers (Gledališče Glej, Ljubljana), Pergine teatro festival, Kilowatt festival, Prototipi Sardegna teatro, Wonderland festival – IDRA.
In recent years, Silvia has been exploring ways to actively and simultaneously utilize the two languages that best characterize this phase of her life (Italian and Slovenian), in what she defines as “active bilingualism” in theatre. She has pursued this both theoretically, through curating a series of interviews entitled Palchi e ponti for the Italian Cultural Institute in Ljubljana, involving Slovenian and Italian actors, directors, and writers; and practically, by collaborating with Festival Approdi in Trieste on the itinerant performance Dante 453, by employing poetry (G. Ungaretti) to create the bilingual artistic-poetic short film Kje je dom? / Casa, and through the public space musical performance Parole parole / Samo besede, in which, accompanied by an accordionist, she explores the meaning of the word “border” in both languages.
In 2024 she performs in the immersive theatre production of Il Rossetti La lingua virale, directed by Silvia Mercuriali.
In June 2025 Silvia debuts with Casa Rossa – Closer from Afar an original and immersive performance that explores the history of the Italo-Yugoslav border. The production has been supported and supervised by groups of historians from both sides of the border Quarantasettezeroquattro and Goriški Muzej for GO!25 European Capital of Culture, In/Visible cities festival.
In the frame of the Capital of Culture 2025 Silvia performs in Neja Tomšič’s project Untangling a garden (GO!25, Gledališče Glej) writing and delivering stories about Rafut park to an itinerant audience. Silvia’s diverse experiences, ranging from prose theatre to street theatre, performance, and site-specific work, have endowed her with considerable performative versatility and the ability to adapt her theatrical research across various geographical and linguistic contexts.
Her research is more than active and in the last years her focus shifted on developing new projects on dynamics of space and people, in specific effect of industrial changings in space and therefore on humans and small to medium communities.