Choreography
Costumes
Nuvia Valestri
Dramaturgy
Emanuele Aldrovandi
Lighting Design
Gessica Germini
Music
Pink Floyd
Performer (Actor)
Jacopo Trebbi
Stage Direction
Manuel Renga
Video Direction
Fabio Massimo Iaquone
Dancers
Filippo Begnozzi, Mario Genovese, Paolo Giovanni Grosso, Aurora Lattanzi, Fabiana Lonardo, Federico Musumeci, Giorgia Raffetto, Alice Ruspaggiari, Diletta Savini, Nicola Stasi, Giuseppe Villarosa
Production
Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Ferrara; Fondazione I Teatri di Reggio Emilia; Ravenna Festival; MM Contemporary Dance Company
With the support of
Italian Ministry of Culture
Emilia-Romagna Region
Municipality of Reggio Emilia
Centro Permanente Danza – Reggio Emilia
About
Inspired by Pink Floyd’s legendary 1979 concept album and Alan Parker’s film adaptation, the work transforms The Wall into a powerful stage manifesto — a protest against a society that erodes individual freedom and sensitivity. Through the figure of Pink, Roger Waters’ alter ego, the performance traces the “bricks” that build an emotional wall: childhood trauma, oppressive education, suffocating family bonds, disillusioned love, addiction, and the pressures of the entertainment industry. At the height of isolation, however, a different force emerges — the will to break the wall, shed masks, and return to human connection.
Plot
Pink appears before the audience behind a wall built from isolation, anger, and frustration. Through flashbacks, he relives the loss of his father, the suffocating presence of his mother, and the humiliation imposed by a rigid school system. Now a celebrated rock star, he remains haunted by these wounds: his marriage collapses, reality fractures, and numbness takes hold. Onstage, his breakdown turns into delirium — victim becoming executioner. In a symbolic trial inside his own mind, the “bricks” of his past testify against him. The verdict is inevitable: tear down the wall and return to empathy, connection, and belonging.
Director’s Note — Manuel Renga
The Wall is a manifesto — a protest against a society that does not respect human beings as free and sentient individuals. Pink inhabits a post-industrial world in which everyone must play a role at the expense of their uniqueness — bricks in a wall. Because the album is one of the most important rock concept works ever created, this stage production becomes a multifaceted artistic translation into contemporary language. Dance, acting, music, and video projections intersect continuously, constructing the “mad confusion” of Pink’s mind. Pink (Jacopo Trebbi) embodies Roger Waters’ alter ego. Dramaturg Emanuele Aldrovandi developed the work from Waters’ diaries and interviews, creating a dimension in which Pink exists between lived experience and memory — both protagonist and author. As Waters stated in 1979, reflecting on years of alienating stadium tours: “I realized there was a wall between us and our audience, and this record came out of those feelings.”
