Spillovers 2022-3
[Premiere 2nd july 2023]
In 2020, a book was found in a well. This well, as many other of life’s cavities, was contaminated by superficial practices of intensive monoculture. Its water, having turned unsanitary, had then dried up for quite a long time. It was inside this hole, then, dried up yet viscerally imprinted by the memory of water, that a translation of “Lesbian peoples: material for a dictionary”, written in 1976 by Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig 1 was found. The glossary presented a continuity with Wittig and Zeig’s clairvoyance, by elaborating further on the rings and fiction bags that Spillovers must touch and weave so as to tangle the times and produce water. (Rita Natalio)
The basis for Spillovers is the book Lesbian peoples: material for a dictionary. Written in 1976 by Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig, this is a dictionary for lovers, outlining the contours of an emotional, sensorial and political lexicon.
Rita Natálio invents a new reading of this work, a tactile text presented as a transfeminist sex manual reflecting upon the roles that the body, eroticism and somatic experience can play in developing alternatives to current ecological problems.
This film-performance, co-produced by Batalha (and linked to the film cycle Counter-Flows), has been developed collectively and cumulatively by Rita Natálio in collaboration with different spillovers: Alina Folini (with whom she started the project and developed the dance notations), Josefa Pereira and Ves Liberta (performance and script), Liz Rosenfeld (filmic contributions), Aline Belfort (audiovisual), Odete (music and drawings), and Kahumbi (costumes and toys), along with a whole network of iconographies and textualities that burst forth from the worldviews of this invented community.
A performative reading of the text has been presented in different contexts as the Short Theatre Festival in Rome, Centrale Fies, ou PARTE Portugal Art Encounters.
⌂ TECHNICAL INFO
Text and direction: Rita NatálioPerformers and text collaborators: Alina Ruiz Folini, Josefa Pereira, Ves Liberta
Music: Odete
Cinematography and editing: Aline Belfort
Film contribution: Liz Rosenfeld
Creation and execution of textile and PVC costumes: Naára Saturnino
Kaibô belt creation: Amanda Silva, Margot Silva
Interviews: Eríc Santos, Lui L’Abbate
Written contribution for the glossary of Spillovers: Geni Núñez
Graphic consultancy and image proposals: Maura Grimaldi
Forked flute: Rebeca Letras
Film documentation: Patrícia Black
Participation in initial residencies: Luiza Cascon, Josefa Pereira
Collaboration in the text's initial conception: Alina Ruiz Folini
English translation: Miguel Cardoso
Co-production: Cinema Batalha, Associação Parasita
Creatiom support: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Support: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Pass the Mic! Decolonizing education through arts. Financiado pelo Programa Europa Criativa da União Europeia, CREA 616850/2020
Create to Impact Network/ Creative Europe da União Europeia e pelo Ministério da Cultura e Informação da República da Sérvia
Executive Production and administration: Associação Parasita / Sofia Lopes and Lysandra Domingues
Assistant production: Laila Algaves Nuñez
Residencies: Casa da Dança de Almada, Estúdios Victor Córdon (Lisbon), Pólo Cultural das Gaivotas (Lisbon), Teatro Municipal do Porto, Espaço Parasita
Support for previous versions of the project: Pass the Mic! Decolonizing education through arts. Financiado pelo Programa Europa Criativa da União Europeia, CREA 616850/2020 (2021), Create to Impact Network/ Creative Europe da União Europeia e pelo Ministério da Cultura e Informação da República da Sérvia (2020)
Residency support: Alkantara Festival, AND Lab
Acknowledgements: Amanda Silva, Archivo de La Memoria Trans Argentina, Electronic Arts Intermix, Elizabeth Povinelli, Karrabing Film Collective, Rui Antunes
Very special acknowledgements: to Penelope for accompanying rehearsals, filming, and confabulating this story between walks