the essential
Faithful to its reputation as a village of artists, Cenne Monestiés, in Aude, is proud to welcome “one of their own”, with multiple talents, who came from Italy 10 years ago.
Simona Boni still marvels at having “found the house of her dreams in the village of her dreams”. Lively, fiercely turned towards others, devouring life to the fullest, she has the gift of inviting people to share her insatiability and her unwavering optimism. Just in her forties, in France for 10 years, this Italian actress, author and singer is the very reincarnation of the powerful sculptural beauty of Roman Antiquity, with no other artifice than a dazzling smile, an expression of iron morale.
An “incredible journey”
“I was born in Emilia-Romagna, in a very humble environment where books did not exist,” she confides. “My first scene, at four years old, was a manhole cover, at the foot of the village castle; my aunts and my grandmothers were my first audience,” she adds in French without the slightest hint of 'accent. And continued: “Teacher, after five years of college, I was the first graduate from both families.” But at 27, driven by the strength to live, Simona Boni left this too sclerotic civil service. Driven by her vocation as an actress, which she forged at the Scuola Sperimentale dell'attore in Pordenone, she always dreams of going on stage. “Fan of Arletty, of Piaf, my future was France!”, she said.
-Ignoring the unknown, the insecurity, the discomfort, she resolutely continues her “incredible journey”, she likes to recall. Didn't she, to go from Italy to France, take a “little” detour via… India where she followed six months of theater training? In 2014, she was in Toulouse where, with Anouk Sebert and Karine Louis, she created the theatrical polyphony trio “Tsatsali”. From one-off collaboration to one-off collaboration with professionals, she deploys hard personal work to the point of exhaustion and creates her own company, in 2020: “Grasparossa”, named after a grape variety from her native region.
90 performances in two years across Europe
In 2021, his first theatrical creation, “Na'ni”, is autobiographical and was a great success: 90 performances in two years across Europe. Then, it will be “The two little girls”, “fable for children recommended for adults”, followed by a first musical album, “A Modo Mio”, a treasure of Mediterranean benefits where her vibrant voice leans warmly on the guitar by Frederic Sanna and the flute or mandolin by Matteo de Bellis.
Currently, she is preparing “Lucia”, a show in which we relive the Allied landing in Salernes in 1943 through female characters: “I highlight a matrimony who frees herself from stereotypes and who values forms of anonymous resistance, or almost “. Lucia/Simona, 80 years apart, the same invincible determination?
