When we return to Templaria, in Castignano, the feeling is always the same: that of returning to a familiar place, almost as if coming home. A place we know, a place that feels part of us and that renews itself every year, continuing to surprise us and inspire us to imagine something new.
Our story with Templaria began with the very first edition of the festival and continues to this day. Every August, when Castignano’s historic centre changes its face and the Middle Ages come back to life among alleys, squares, arches and ancient walls, for us it means rediscovering people, atmospheres and sensations that have become part of our artistic history.
Templaria is not simply a historical re-enactment. For a few days, it becomes a place capable of building an entire world.
Theatre, music and performances coexist with taverns, banquets, artisan workshops and flavours inspired by the Middle Ages. Walking through the historic centre, the boundary between the village and the festival almost seems to disappear: architecture becomes scenery, streets become stages and the audience becomes part of the story.
And perhaps this is one of the things we love most about Templaria: you do not simply watch a performance; you step into an atmosphere.
For Compagnia dei Folli, returning to Castignano also means facing a new challenge every time. Templaria continually pushes us to imagine, search and experiment.
Every edition brings with it a question: what can we invent this year?
We do not simply want to repeat what we have already done. We look for new images, new techniques, new ways of inhabiting space and surprising the audience. Sometimes we start from a piece of apparatus, sometimes from a character, a piece of music, a medieval suggestion or simply an image we would like to see come to life in the streets of Castignano.
It is a search that can lead us towards street theatre, acrobatics, stilts, fire, aerial structures, dance, light or entirely different languages.
And this is where Templaria takes on another meaning for us: it becomes a creative laboratory.
Very often, what is born while thinking about the streets, squares and nights of Castignano does not remain confined to the days of the festival. An idea tested at Templaria can grow, transform and be developed, becoming the starting point for a new performance to take to other cities, festivals and events.
It is as though every summer Castignano gives us a space in which to try to push ourselves a little further.
Over the years, this ongoing relationship with the festival has created something that goes beyond simply taking part as performers. There are encounters that repeat themselves, people we meet again, places we know and look at with different eyes each year. Above all, there is that particular feeling you have when you arrive somewhere already knowing that, in some way, that place belongs to us, and we belong a little to it.
At Templaria, we feel at home.
A welcoming, engaging, surprising home. A home that, for five days, fills with people and transforms an entire village into one great theatrical space.
This is also why events like Templaria have a value that goes far beyond the event itself. Preserving and developing a festival means enhancing a territory, telling its story, building memory and, at the same time, creating new opportunities for encounters and cultural tourism.
Historical heritage does not remain closed away in books or monuments: it comes back to life. Stones, alleys and squares become part of a collective narrative in which history, legend and performance meet.
This is exactly what Templaria manages to do: turn memory into experience.
For us at Compagnia dei Folli, every return to Castignano is therefore both a return and a new departure. We rediscover a story we know well, but we also know that there is still something new to invent. We return to a home, but each time we try to furnish it with new images.
And perhaps this is precisely the strength of events that endure over time: being deeply rooted in their origins without ever stopping the search for something new.
We keep searching for it, year after year, through the streets of Castignano.
Because Templaria is part of our story. And even today, it continues to help us imagine what comes next.