A «Library of Strings and Knots» is open to the public, starting this Saturday, 23rd, and until March 31st, Easter Sunday, at the Antiga Lota de Portimão. This is the inaugural moment of the vast program that the cultural cooperative Lavrar o Mar will present in Portimão, until December, to celebrate the city's centenary.
Giacomo Scalisi, director of Lavrar o Mar, in a recent presentation of the program designed specifically for Portimão, in partnership with the Municipality, highlighted that, throughout these months, «we tried to use all the voices of the arts: music, dance, circus, theater, photography».
But what is the String and Knot Library? It is a project developed by Spanish creator José Antonio Portillo, «a library that he built from stories he collected, working with schools and communities, and which has been traveling throughout Europe for more than 20 years. This library has books…and it doesn't have books, it has stories. Stories that he tells and that, poetically, make people enter this imaginary library».
The show has the artistic participation of Matilde Real and Rita Rodrigues and executive production by Unnica Arts, in addition to support from the Center for Pedagogy and Animation, the Centro Cultural de Belém and the Theater Hetpalais d'Anvers (Belgium).
The author's objective, with this installation-show, is to give relevance to the importance of listening to silence, of seeing, touching, reflecting and experimenting. The mobile library is a circular wooden structure that stores various manuscripts, never published texts, scores, drawings and many other objects, such as, for example, cylinders filled with messages made of ropes and knots.
The «Library of Strings and Knots» already had four sessions for primary school audiences, which took place between the 19th and 22nd of March.
Sessions are also scheduled for the 23rd and 24th and 28th to 31st of March, at 17pm, open to the general public, lasting approximately 00 minutes.
Tickets cost five euros for adults and three euros for children aged 6 to 12, with capacity limited to 30 seats.
Tickets can be purchased online by clicking here or, in person, at the Portimão Municipal Theater and the Portimão Museum.
But José Antonio Portillo will bring two other projects to the century-old city. One of them is «a second skin» that surrounds the library and is called «Organic Paths». According to Scalisi, it is about “accompanying teenagers from the city on their journeys and imagining. with them, other paths».
«We want to know what route they take every day between home and school. We want you to film these routes. Then we will think about how we can improve, based on the images and imagination of a teenager, this route and the city itself. We will have red lines that connect the library to the city map. The city map itself will be part of this second skin. Afterwards, we will also have the possibility of imagining other routes for other people who will visit the second skin».
O «Museum of Time» is the third project. It is, once again, about involving the community in a show, which will include theater, installation and guided tours. And which culminates with “burial ceremonies”.
And what will be buried? Giacomo Scalisi explains: «we want to imagine a museum in the city of Portimão, which hides objects that are memories of the city's people. We will work with three groups: children, adults and a group of people of some age. They will choose the most important object in their life, linked to the memories of the city they live in, Portimão. They will also choose a place where they want to bury this object».
Then, “we’re going to bury the object. People who participate will write a story and bury their object through a burial ceremony. It will be from that moment on that the place will belong to memories. The place belongs to that person».
So that everyone can, in the future, continue to visit these places where objects of memory are buried, each of them will have a QR Code, inscribed on a tile. «From this QR Code, you can read the story, see what object is buried».
Basically, «we will make a map or three different maps, with which you can visit the city, based on the affections that the people of the city decided to leave here», says Scalisi.
Although only this weekend, with the «Biblioteca de Cordas e Nós», the special Lavrar o Mar program appears in the eyes of the general public, the work has already started some time ago.
In February, for example, meetings of the «group of thinkers», which includes «an anthropologist, Pedro Prista, Nélio Conceição, who is a philosopher, Sandro William Junqueira, who is a writer, Maria João Raminhos Duarte, who is a historian, and Paulo Quaresma, who is an artist here in the city» .
«Together, these people are thinking about the city of Portimão. Everyone has a connection with the city itself, but also with thinking about the city in general. What is the relationship we have with our own city and with cities across the country? What is the future of the idea of the city?».
And what will result from the work of this group of thinkers? Scalisi confesses: “We don't know how they will communicate with the public afterwards. Will it be a book? A publication, meetings, reports? Everything is yet to be imagined together with them, it is a step by step work».
In April, because the month will be filled with celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, Lavrar o Mar will not have public appearances.
But it returns on May 3rd, and soon with an «outdoor show, for the general public, for everyone, for families».
It is a French new circus and street theater company, called Inextremist, with the show «Exit». «It is a large hot air balloon that will fly in the riverside area, close to the Clube Naval. And why will you fly? Because he wants to take with him a group of crazy people who are escaping from a psychiatric hospital and who are looking for freedom. And they decided that the hot air balloon will be the way to stay away from the rules and impositions that the hospital itself has and, perhaps, our own society too».
The new circus will return with Cloé Moglia, a French balancing artist, and her company Horizon, which combines new circus and dance and which will bring, in June (1st and 2nd) the show «Rhizome», and then, in September (20th and 21st) «La Spire» .
The director of Lavrar o Mar explains what can be seen: «Horizon is, in essence, a challenge of one's own body in the air. Cloé has an instrument that she uses to suspend herself in the air. It's dancing, defying gravity, with small movements, with connections, with a dance that is done in the air».
Cloé Moglia will be back in September, «with a show that is the development of this solo, but now with six artists, also tightrope walkers, in a structure that she imagined and which is La Spire, in French, that is, a spiral. They will dance from this structure, playing with the air, with gravity, with the possible movement».
In June, the Music Project, for which Scalisi confessed to having “a lot of affection”.
«We invited three artists, Pedro Salvador, Johannes Krieger and Margarida Mestre, to work with the musical community of Portimão. We will launch a call document for people to participate: those who play guitar will work with Pedro Salvador, who has an electric guitar, an amplifier at home, and a great desire to play together. For Johannes Krieger they are woodwinds. And for Margarida Mestre, who is a voice, sung and spoken. In this case, we will have contact with the choral groups that exist in the city of Portimão».
This call document, or invitation to participate, «will be for people who already practice, who are professionals, and others who are amateurs».
The person responsible for programming says he hopes that «the turnout will be great and that we will have very large groups playing 50 electric guitars with 50 amplifiers, playing a composition with Pedro Salvador, as well as with Johannes and Margarida».
This project begins in June and will last until December, culminating in its public presentation.
Still in June, Teatro do Vestido, a Portuguese company by Joana Craveiro with which Lavrar o Mar has already worked, will bring a project designed for the city of Portimão: «This is my city and I want to live in it».
There will be two moments. The first will be in June, «when Joana Craveiro, with her actors and actresses in Portimão, will be in artistic residency and will be looking for history. Basically, it is anthropological research that she will carry out in the city».
And then, in December (20 to 22), the show that will close this Lavrar o Mar program will take place, to be presented «in the places that Joana Craveiro finds as a result of this research work in the city».
In July, there will be another great moment for the family public and for everyone who visits Portimão. Once again, it will be a French company, Akoreacro. The show is called «Arret d'Urgence» (Emergency stop) and «it also has to do with the madness in which we find ourselves».
«They will occupy public space with a thought about public space and the city, based on what is their own company, their own specificity, which is the Novo Circo. The show has a big truck, there are musicians, there are trapeze artists that improvise from one moment to the next. It’s a very festive spectacle.”
August, a month in which a lot will happen in Portimão and throughout the Algarve, the special Lavrar o Mar program will once again have no public moments. But it will return in force in September, with three proposals.
One of them is "The city speaks», a photography and video documentary project. «We are going to have three photographers imagine who the people of Portimão are. Let's photograph them. We will have a photography studio on the street or in an abandoned store in the city center. We photograph people's faces and then we will show these faces with an exhibition in the city», says Giacomo Scalisi.
At the same time, there will be a video project, to «listen to the people of Portimão», who, in front of a camera, will have «three minutes or two minutes or one minute and some questions that arise from our thought group. People have the opportunity to speak, say what they think about the city. Then we will collect all these recorded statements and present them in a documentary».
In the same month of September, there will be a new festive program for families, which is related to tradition. Its about "Puppets, Dolls and Puppets», a puppet theater that combines traditions from two countries: Dom Roberto and Bonecos de Santo Aleixo, both from Portugal, with Pupi Siciliani (from Palermo) and Pulcinella, both from Italy.
They are “stories that talk about people who live in cities. It's an ancient tradition. In Italy, puppets were used during Fascism to address things that could not be talked about», recalls Scalisi.
In October, choreographer Miguel Pereira will present the show «Miquelina and Miguel», of dance, which «talks about diseases of old age, such as Alzheimer's. He is in the scene with his own mother and his mother suffers from dementia. He is careful to protect his own mother, bring her into the picture and, together with her, show how it is possible to have a different relationship with dementia itself and with age. It's an exciting spectacle».
Scalisi adds that «we are going to present this show as part of Seniors Week. It will cover a whole thought about a part of the city, which is also important to know, to know that it exists. I think this show can mark this moment, so that we don't forget the people who are most in need, who need to be looked at in a different way».
Also in October, with no set date yet, Giacomo Scalisi and Sandro William Junqueira present their «culinary theater» show in Portimão, called «Whoever goes to the Sea does not return to Earthto".
The theme of the show is…cod, this “Portuguese fish that speaks Norwegian and that, for many years, was caught by Portuguese ships that went to the North Sea, and then went out in small dories, to fish. It is the story of a family in which the father had to choose, like many Portuguese men of his time, between going to Africa, to war, or going to cod fishing. These are dramas that have been experienced throughout the history of Portugal. The women and children did not know if these men would return, because many died in the fogs of the North Sea».
But this won't be a spectacle normal: «it’s a dinner show. We will prepare and eat food called chora, a soup that the sailors themselves cooked at sea, and also a very particular dish and dessert, which are fried cod tongues, like Christmas cakes, with sugar and cinnamon» . Mouth-watering…or maybe not.
In November, it will be the turn of the presentation of a project by Madalena Victorino, who is co-director of Lavrar o Mar, called «Rumor».
«We decided together that it made sense for her to be able to do a project with the community here too. It will be a project divided between a small village, which is Bordeira, and urbanity, which is Portimão, a confrontation between the city and the village».
Giacomo adds that this is a project that Lavrar o Mar has already worked on in other places and that seeks, in essence, to «find the identity of small villages».
At the end of November and then in December, there will be another circus, with the company «Cirque Ici», by Johann Le Guillerm.
Giacomo Scalisi says that he usually “calls it a saga, because in reality there are three shows, which Johann Le Guillerm brings us. And they will happen even at a “hot” moment of our centenary of the city of Portimão, because this date is celebrated on December 11th».
The first show (November 28th to December 1st) will take place at Portimão Arena and is called «Enchantment». It will be «a culinary experience, with a chef with two Michelin stars, Alexandre Gauthier, who has a very unique vision of cuisine, who is associated with Johann Le Guillerm, who is an outstanding circus artist. His is continuous research, it is a laboratory between physics, chemistry and everything that may happen. It's a show, a dinner, which has a very particular configuration».
The public will listen and follow Johann Le Guillerm's instructions. «People have to do things, then they eat them with their fingers. The dishes construct small situations that Johann really likes to imagine in the show, with the food itself, which have to do with balance, physics and chemistry».
So that no one is left out of this «immersive experience, fantastic cuisine», «six presentations will be made, hoping that we can give everyone the opportunity to see and participate in the show».
From the 7th to the 15th of December, in the riverside area of Portimão, the second show in this saga will be presented, called «Tuesdays» and that it is «a little sui generis, in a circus tent».
Scalisi explains that it is a show that Johann Le Guillerm “has been doing for 20 years, but that changes every five years, and that he innovates based on his research. It has objects, it has balances, it has this relationship with space, it has magic that happens inside this tent».
Lifting the veil a little on these first two shows and what may connect them (or not...), the director of Lavrar o Mar highlights that he finds it «interesting to go to dinner or lunch at “Encantation”, to see the objects and equipment that we will have in your hands during that lunch, and then watch this second show».
Finally, on December 11th, City Day and the official celebrations of the centenary of Portimão becoming a city, arrives «La Transumante», also from Cirque Ici by Johann Le Guillerm.
«It is a very particular project, an itinerant installation, a journey through the city over the course of 6 hours, with 450 wooden beams, which, in essence, build architecture and dialogue with the city's own architecture. It is the Cirque Ici company itself that will transport or launch these beams, with the participation of some people from Portimão, who will join the company and visit the city».
In the end, «they will converge in a location in the city, where there will also be intervention from our Music Project laboratories», which began in June and culminates here.
Summarizing this cultural program, ambitious like no other before presented in Portimão, Giacomo Scalisi concludes by saying that «you can see and follow the shows and obtain a collection of feelings, images, poetic journeys of the artists and connections with the city of Portimão , ever. And whoever wants to participate will have their own moments to be able to do so actively».
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