You can’t see me but it’s a portrait 2011

“You can’t see me but it’s a portrait” is a theatrical and visual fiction constructed upon meetings with Portuguese aged from 9 to 90 about their lives and their notions of community. The base created from an ensemble of interviews is transformed, expanded and connected by writing and mise-en-scène, containing simultaneously the singular imaginary of each participant and its dilution in the perspective of the whole. Closely, each individual is between two or many, belonging to all and none, without even belonging to himself or herself. At a distance, writing is used to dress and undress characters that talk about the thirsts of this century. We ask ourselves what would happen if more than 30 people, that didn’t meet before, would get stuck in a room and have only one hour to manage their differences and get their way out of there. “You can’t see me but it’s a portrait” is this kaleidoscopic crossroads of real testimonies, utopias of living together, desires, ideas of community, thirst and invented rules of mechanics. During the process of creation of this piece I discovered how much narrative – individual and collective – can function as an automatism, independently of events and will. Even the most fragmentary, non-synchronized composition will generate an atlas of meaning. It’s inevitable: just like math laws (“two points are enough to determine a line”), two people are enough to form an idea of community. I tried to accept this condition by applying to dramaturgy some elements that are proper to the movement of clouds. I tried to consider the idea of community and identity as something temporary, in a permanent and un-ending movement. Rita Natálio

 

 

⌂ TECHNICAL INFO

Artistic direction: Rita Natálio
Guess artist – scenic installation: Luciana Fina
Performers: Cláudio da Silva, Carla Bolito, Nuno Lucas

Special appearance: Stanislaw Talejko
Original text: Rita Natálio and collective writing by Carla Bolito, Cláudio da Silva and Nuno Lucas

Light design: Carlos Ramos
Sound design: Rui Dâmaso and Pedro Costa
Original soundtrack: Ana Gandum, lyrics by Miguel Coelho
Artistic consultants: Sofia Dias

Production: O Rumo do Fumo

Co-production: O Rumo do Fumo, Festival Escrita na Paisagem, Município do Fundão/ A Moagem – Cidade do Engenho e das Artes, Fundação Caixa Geral de Depósitos - Culturgest and Festival Temps d’Images
Artistic Residencies: A Moagem – Cidade do Engenho e das Artes, Fundão, Alkantara and O Rumo do Fumo

Partners: Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia do Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (CIES-ISCTE)
Thanks to: Andrea Sozzi, João Ribeiro, Luísa Veloso, Magda Bull, Sofia Dias and Vera Mantero

Lisbon interview participants: Alberto Pimenta, Aissato Dajaló Baldé, Ana Hatherly, Andresa Soares, Carlos Natálio, Carlos Gomes, Gonçalo Pereira, Luísa Veloso, Lígia Soares, Sofia Dias, Stanislaw Talejko, Vítor Roriz

Fundão interview participants: Ângela Duarte, Amanda Guapo, Bruno Fonseca, Carlota Madeira Inês, David Josué Oliveira, Daniela Carvalho, Francisco Tavares, Fábio, Ivan, José Lopes Correia, Joaquim Caldeira, Jerónimo Mateus, Maria da Lurdes Brito, Maria Anunciação Amaral, Maria Tavares