Andrés Neumann

In 2004, together with the Associazione Culturale Teatro Studio Blu, Neumann started to develop a project for the creation of a cultural center in Pistoia. This project came to a conclusion in 2009 with the opening of the Il Funaro Cultural Center, and the donation to the Center of the Archivio Teatrale Andres Neumann. The center is a venue with three working spaces, dressing rooms, office space, restaurant, construction laboratory, library and guesthouse for 16 people

In 2001 he had a son, René, with Viviana Benci, a school teacher he had met at the Gurdjieff groups.

In 1990 Neumann bought a country house in Anghiari, Tuscany, where he then spent most of his time. He undertook a process of transformation in the attempt to find the roots of art and culture through physical and spiritual practices. Thanks to Peter Brook he approached the Gurdjieff groups, and thanks to Graciela Figueroa he approached the Claudio Naranjo SAT groups. His interest in theater and dance shifted from the finished production to the practical creative and pedagogical process, thus meeting individuals such as Enrique Vargas, Kristin Linklater and Juan Carlos Corazza.

Until 1985 the company was based in Florence. After the international co-production project for Peter Brook's The Mahabharata, the company moved its headquarters to Rome, where it kept operating until 2000.

In 1979 Neumann simultaneously curated two major international theatrical production projects for two important stage directors in two different cities. Wielopole Wielopole for Tadeusz Kantor in Florence, and Place and Target for Richard Foreman in Rome.

Between 1979 and 2000 Andres Neumann International became the center of a worldwide network of cultural exchange projects for the performing arts. Ingmar Bergman from Sweden, Andrzej Wajda from Poland, Luca Ronconi, Vittorio Gassman, Dario Fo from Italy, the Comédie Francaise and Peter Brook from France, The Kabuki from Japan, and Pina Bausch from Germany entrusted their work to Andres Neumann during those years.

Neumann was an active member of the staff of the festival until 1978, appointed to curate the artistic delegations of various Scandinavian and Eastern countries as well as Italy, where he settled with his family in 1974.

In 1974 Neumann, encouraged among others by Luigi Nono, Italian avant-garde composer and member of the central committee of the Communist Party, settled in Florence while continuing his cooperation as artistic curator of the Italian delegation to the Festival Mondial du Théatre de Nancy. The role of curator had put him in connection with the Italian theater world and in particular with the Teatro Regionale Toscano (now Fondazione Toscana Spettacoli). He was soon engaged by this organisation to curate a special section dedicated to experimental theater at Teatro Rondo di Bacco, a venue in the left wing of Palazzo Pitti. Neumann curated three seasons at Teatro Rondo di Bacco in Florence, inviting among many others the Bread and Puppet Theater, Bob Wilson, Meredith Monk from the US, Tadeusz Kantor with the Cricot 2 from Poland and Roberto Benigni from Italy. As talent scout, Neumann promoted internationally the work of Italian theater artist and companies such as Magazzini Criminali and Pierluigi Pieralli from Florence, and Remondi & Caporossi and Memé Perlini from Rome.

In the meantime, Neumann had married his second wife, Lily Salvo, an important painter and artist belonging to the Taller Torres Garcia. She was part of the active cultural life in Latin America, including Pablo Neruda and Ernesto Sabato. From their marriage a daughter named Mara was born. Andres, Lily and Mara left Uruguay in October 1972 and settled in Nancy, France, for the next two years.

In 1970 he received the award for "Best Soundtrack of the Year" conferred by the Theater Critics Association of Uruguay, and in 1972 he received, jointly with Jorge Carrozino and Carmen Prieto, a commission from the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales (MNAV) to fit out an important anthological exhibition of paintings and artwork by Rafael Barradas.

In the same year a private presenting and production company was established: Andres Neumann International. This move was inspired by the advice of Franco Camerlinghi, at that time Secretary of Culture for the city of Florence. The first client of this company were the brothers I Colombaioni, the clowns who had worked with Federico Fellini for the film The Clowns (1970). For them, and during the following years, an international tour in more than 100 world cities was put in place.

Andrés Neumann (born 1943) is a polyglot design thinker, and performing arts and creative and cultural industries professional, born in Bolivia, raised in Uruguay and established in Europe.

Andres Neumann was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1943, to central European parents. His family moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, when he was five years old. His mother tongue was German, and he learned Spanish, the official language of Uruguay, only at elementary school.