He had just finished making the young patients laugh in a ward of the Niguarda hospital, with his red clown nose. Filippo Bonacchi, 26 years old, He died last Saturday 29 March from a sudden illnessof which the origin is not yet known. Despite immediate rescue, there was nothing to do. Born in Pistoia, actor, dancer, mime, juggler, clown, Filippo was a multifaceted artistbut in the lane he was a “volunteer with the red nose”, one of those who raised your day, made of expectations, reports, exams, endless hours in a bed, often without speaking with anyone. One of those “angels” that relieves the tiredness and despair of mothers and dads, alongside small hospitalized.
Lucky among the less fortunate
“All the fortunes to others”, here are the others: as follows the post on his Instagram profile of 17 January last, under the photo taken in the lane at the Gaetano Pini Institute in Milan, one of the structures in which Filippo volunteered, practicing the Clowterapia – or smile therapy – entered for some time in healthcare facilities to give joy and relief to those who are hospitalized. A red ball stuck on the tip of the nose, the white shirt with a rain of colored pom poms attached, a plush peeking out of a pocket, the blue shirt with the clouds drawn. But there are many images and movies so, in which I dance, sings, makes the jester, improvised a casquè with the nurse. The aim was always the same: to make people laugh – or at least smile – those who have no desire at all, because in the hospital, we know, time never passes. Considering a lucky one of the ranks of those “others”, who enter the ward only to go and find someone who is sick, Bonacchi had put his own talent at the service of the most fragilegiving funny scenes, jokes, jokes and small juggler tricks: moments that interrupt a day always the same as herself, sweeping away – even for half an hour – the most black thoughts, erasing the fear, alleviating the pain. “We call them the red noses”, they say to the Erika Association for the fight against the Odv of the Odv of the Niguarda Hospital, where Filippo donated his time. And his joy for the last time. He was also a red nose. “He came here once a month to give joy to our patientstogether with two other volunteers ». That love for the clowns came from afar, since he had decided almost by chance of getting on a stage and making his life.
From the circus to the theater, passing through Paris
“I started making this type of show Thanks to my parents who gave me for the feast of my eighteenth birthday The performance of a group of wonderful actors, and I speak of the Nero Circus, a company that with its performances, rigidly in clothes that recall the clown of the circus, manages to convey many emotions in a physical concentrate of music and dances “, he told in 2021 in an interview on the site Arteventi News. «I was so impressed that a few days later I asked if it was possible to join them. Here, this is the real beginning. And I learned a lot from them ». Filippo begins to study acting at the high school, at the Funaro of Pistoia, but After the scientific maturity leaves his city and He arrives in Milan To make his great dream come true: to make theater. A “strange, but beautiful” theater as he loved to call him. He graduated in 2021 from Civic School of Teatro Paolo Grassi of Milan during the TeatroDanza course, to then fly in ParisWhere He will study for two years at the Incole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. “I am very happy,” he said after passing the selections for admission, “because I will have the opportunity to study exactly what interests me: a method of movement of the body that starts from the neutral mask and passes through the clown and mime, to give an essential and precise preparation of the actor’s movement”. His overwhelming passion and his commitment lead him to have experiences with artists of the caliber of Misha Ussov of the Cirque du Soleil (Enter to be part of it is her dream), Maria Consagra of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano and Kuniaki Ida, co -founder of the Arsenale Theater in Milan. Meanwhile, in 2022 he founded, with other young actors, the Bacchetti Theater Company And He ventures as an authorwriting “Gastone’s horns” taken from a text by Ettore Petrolini, and the show “Lume”, staged a year ago in Pistoia.
The commitment to Corsia as a volunteer
But his life is not only made of this: between one performance and the other, dancing on aerial fabric and hovering on the trapeze, Filippo often find time to devote to those who cannot go to the theater, nor to the circus. And so he puts on a red nose on the tip of the nose e Pandy laughs in hospital lanesputting in volunteering the same fire that puts on the stage. “I loved this burning tizzone of life, flew to Paris to complete the studies of the beloved Lecoq and become a dancer, performer and disruptive clown,” he wrote on social media after his death Marinella Gualterini, one of her teachers of Paolo Grassi. “It was not lacking to send me drawings, to call me and he remembered me at every foot. This was not to do this. “
A spark that will not turn off
«When you are on stage with the public in front, you can often perceive that it is being established an almost on equal terms, in which it is given and received; And this feeling is a fundamental element for an actor, especially in the kind of theater, the physical one, which I prefer, “he declared to Arteventi News. Filippo has given and received a lot, not only by calculating the scenes, but also in the lanes of the hospitals, where he embarks “Trenini” for young and old, some with the stem of the Flebo later, blowing into out of tune trumpets and singing songs invented on the spot. Big and small who now cry him but who will continue to think of him, remembering his red nose and his smile.
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