"By force of circumstances, this year we started calling for a compliment at the end – we talk about what ends as a way of talking about what begins when something ends." This is the general motto of the 2018/2019 season program of the «Lavrar o Mar» project, presented yesterday at a press conference in Quinta da Lameira, in the martyred Serra de Monchique, site of the first show.
The program, which is once again financially supported by 365Algarve, the General Directorate of Arts, CRESC Algarve 2020 and the Municipalities of Monchique and Aljezur (and has logistical support from the Parish Council of Monchique), starts this weekend, 10th and 11th of November, com "Medronho #1 - fire doesn't have four letters». The saga "of Monchiquense Romeu and Juliet" has a twist here, with the entry into the scene of the father, Manuel Monteiro, character played by actor António Fonseca, and the son, Ezequiel (Pedro Frias).
O show will take place in the middle of the mountain, right there in Lameira, among ashes and the first green grass born with the autumn rains. On the weekends of 10 and 11 and also on 17 and 18, in the four days with two sessions, at 11:00 am and 14:30 pm, the meeting point will be the Monchique Heliport, from where the audience will be transported to the venue.
Tickets cost 10 euros, including a light meal that, this time, will not have arbutus brandy. The production recommends that you wear comfortable shoes and clothing suitable for the rain.
From the coal and the ashes, the exuberance and splendor of the party will pass, in «Dancing!», the show scheduled for the 29th, 30th, 31st of November and also on the 1st of December, at the headquarters of the Rancho Folclórico in Rogil, on the occasion of the Sweet Potato Festival, which, on those same days, takes place in Aljezur.
Um prom and a dinner, where sweet potatoes will be the star of the night, made by experienced hands, according to sometimes surprising recipes from Eritrea, Mozambique, India and North Africa. “We are going to eat with our hands, sit at low tables and dance”, explained Madalena Victorino, one of those responsible for this new production of “Lavrar o Mar”.
For dancing, there will be the debut of the Orquestra Vicentina, which results from a challenge launched by Júnior, musician and vocalist of Terrakota, who lives in Aljezur, Madalena and Giacomo Scalisi. But there will also be the presence of Cape Verdeans “Fogo Fogo”, nicknamed “the hottest band in the area”.
"It will be the party to counter this Medronho, more dramatic," explained Madalena Victorino.
On the 8th of December, at Espaço+, in Aljezur, and the 9th, in the multipurpose room of the Parish Council, in Monchique, «KÂO – Embolus of the World", which, according to the director, comes "to fill a space that has been almost empty in our programming, that of theater and music for young children." "Several people, who have small children, have brought this need to us."
«KÂO» brings polyphonic singing, through three voices of three Portuguese women: Sofia Portugal, Susana Quaresma and Tânia Cardoso. On the laps of their mothers and fathers, recreating «the most intimate of gestures – the rocking of the lap», children from 0 to 3 years old will listen to lullabies from many parts of the world.
Tickets cost 3 euros (adult+baby), for a show that will last 35 minutes.
At the end of the year, as is becoming a tradition in Monchique, the new circus arrives, this time with the French company Cirque Aïtal, which will appear in the tent that will be set up on the heliport, between December 28 (always at 21 pm) and January 1 (at 17 pm).
It is about the show «The Circus Seasons», which premiered in June at a festival in France, is now being presented in Paris and then comes directly to Monchique.
The chapitô to be mounted will, this time, seat 670 people, since, in the two previous years, «many people were left out, for lack of space», recalled Giacomo Scalisi, the other person in charge of the programming.
Giacomo promises a show that will make "a bridge between the traditional circus and the new circus", with a troupe of 25 people, from different nationalities in Northern Europe, from the French to the Finns and Russians. The promise is of «acrobatic stimuli, live music, and where the relationship with animals, in this case two horses, brings us closer to a primordial place, where we could dream and let our breath hang by a thread of wonder».
On the night of December 31, as is already a tradition, the show will end with a New Year's Eve party, with music, mountain snacks and lots of entertainment, in which the Cirque Aïtal troupe will participate.
Entering the new year of 2019, the first show to be presented will be «Eva Poro», a creation of Madalena Victorino with artists who will be in residence, between 7 and 31 January. The first result of this work will be presented to the public on the 8th, 9th and 10th of February, in Aljezur, and on the 22nd, 23rd and 24th of the same month, in Monchique, in locations yet to be defined. In May, there will be an «Eva Poro», part 2, closing the entire program.
At the press conference, Madalena Victorino explained that it is a co-creation with several artists, directed by her, but with a «group of performers very interesting, who will work with children in the community». "I am very interested in this relationship between art and community," he added.
This new production will mix “children from the public school and children from the alternative school”, “who do not meet and who also have different educations”.
The show will have as its motto «the air as a space for the creation of a new space». «Eva is a mare that disappears into the meadow, Poro is the skin».
Another interesting feature, according to Madalena, is that, in February, the show includes "only men and little boys", while in May it will have "women and girls". It will be a “dividing of these two worlds, male and female”, which will approach the relationship between genders in a very creative and even experimental way.
The creation will feature cellist Joana Guerreiro, also co-author and responsible for the original music that will be presented. She will "enter the male world to produce the music, but they don't see her," explained Madalena Victorino.
And where will this creation be presented? “It will definitely happen in nature, in evaporating spaces. I thought of villages that disappear. I'm working to find the best set design for this experiment», revealed the director.
In March, the «Strawberry #2», this time with texts by Afonso Cruz, about the women of the Serra. The presentations will be on the weekends of 15,16, 17 and 22,23 and also 24, 20 and 00 March, in Marmelete, always at XNUMX:XNUMX.
Giacomo Scalisi explained that Afonso Cruz, with this new show, will be “writing for this other side of the mountain, where the arbutus tree still exists and was not taken away by fire”. Here, he announced, the actors' theatrical performance will once again be accompanied by a few glasses of medronho brandy.
"We will drink the arbutus, which, from one moment to the next, may disappear", he stressed. Once again, in the background will be the question of “how things end and start over”.
In late March and April, culminating with a «great crossing» in the landscape, open to the public (and free to access), on Easter Sunday, the 21st, there will be a creative residency on a particular aspect of the new circus, funambulism.
The French artist Tatiana-Mosio Bongonga, "whose stage is a wire, suspended at 80, 90, 100 meters high, where she makes a 300 meter course", as Giacomo Scalisi said, will start by teaching what she knows in workshops in the last week of March and from 1st to 20th of April, in Monchique and Aljezur.
On the 21st of April, Easter Sunday, in the early afternoon, there will be a “great journey through the landscape”, with Tatiana and perhaps some of the participants in the workshops. "We still don't know where this crossing will be, but it will be in nature," announced Giacomo.
Accompanying the crossing suspended on a wire stretched tens of meters high, there will be music, with «a wind orchestra, with more than 100 elements», which will be created on purpose for this show.
Remi Gallet, musician and composer who «has lived here for a long time» and with whom Tatiana works, will be responsible for the musical part of this unprecedented event in the Algarve… and little seen in the rest of the country, even in the big cities.
"We will have a large orchestra of wind instruments, air instruments, the same air that will sustain Tatiana on her journey," he added.
Between the 3rd and 5th of May, in both municipalities, there will be a new circus once again, but this time with the French «Cie. XY", which, with its 21 acrobats, will present the show "Les Voyages». It will be an event of “aerial acrobatics and hand in hand, very physical”, explained Madalena Victorino.
It is a creation «site specific», in other words, created «according to what they find in the territory, people, land, streets, cliffs». In the end, there will be «a great moment, it is not yet known exactly where, to present this creation that they are going to develop». It will be a show that values “the relationship between body, acrobatics, territory and air”.
Finally, to close this season of «Lavrar o Mar» programming, in May there will be the second cycle of «Eva Poro». The presentations will be on the 17th, 18th and 19th, in Monchique, and on the 31st of May, 1st and 2nd of June, in Aljezur. Once again, for now, it is not yet known which locations will be chosen.
Giacomo Scalisi, during the press conference, framed the work that has been done and its ability to attract companies and artists of great international status to two peripheral Algarve councils. And not everything has to do with the money...
“In these three years, we have created a great relationship with people, with the community. We build this web. Foreign companies come here, use this web and develop their own projects». What results from this mixture can be seen, until May, in various places in the municipalities of Aljezur and Monchique.
Tickets:
can be purchased by clicking here.
They are also available at these locations:
Monchique: Municipal Library
Aljezur: Lavrar o Mar House – Rua João Dias Mendes
Code: CTT
(tickets will go on sale as shows get closer)
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