A local theatre movement emerging from a European Theatre co-programming process.
4 show nights, 7 shows, 2 music performances, 7 different theatre groups from Portugal, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Ukraine.
ELENA VERTEGEL & MAEVA LAMBERT: “FIXE”
On the stage, chaos is represented by yo-yos. Small mirrors embedded in them reflect light. In a hypnotic atmosphere, two bodies from the future, in mutual interaction, recall the complexity and the resonances that inhabited their bodies in the past. From particles to celestial bodies, from the inert to the living, from cell to organism, from brain to thought, from consciousness to action. Out of this journey through time and space, an unknown world emerges that invites us to reconnect with the universe and with each other.
ZID THEATRE: "HISTORIA"
In this solo piece, conceived, choreographed and performed by Issam Zemmouri, contemporary dance, physical expression and visual poetry combine to define a journey stretching across the Mediterranean sea. The protagonist of the piece is Odysseus, always on the move, always on the cusp of the next big adventure. Encounters with different cultures, languages and civilizations take us on a quest through past, present and future. 'Can I be myself?' is the question the traveller finds himself asking over and over again as he grapples with the rules and obstacles of the game.
MONDAY 10 APRIL 2023
TUESDAY 11 APRIL 2023
ELENA VERTEGEL & MAEVA LAMBERT: “FIXE”
On the stage, chaos is represented by yo-yos. Small mirrors embedded in them reflect light. In a hypnotic atmosphere, two bodies from the future, in mutual interaction, recall the complexity and the resonances that inhabited their bodies in the past. From particles to celestial bodies, from the inert to the living, from cell to organism, from brain to thought, from consciousness to action. Out of this journey through time and space, an unknown world emerges that invites us to reconnect with the universe and with each other.
ZID THEATRE: "CYRCELS – WORK IN PROGRESS"
Zaher Hamzat and Issam Zemmouri present a dance inspired by the Middle Eastern Sufi dance tradition in combination with modern dance elements. This creates a new artistic dance language. Hamzat has years of experience as a dancer for a company in Syria and Zemmouri has developed his own style after training in Morocco and France. Now they meet and a dialogue of recognition, reflection and conflict arises in which each dancer finds his own way.
SÍLVIA ALMEIDA:
“FROM ABOVE/DO ALTO”
From Above/Do Alto" is a place. It is also the name by which a woman is known. This is a woman of particular places. She belongs to a land, to a house, to a bench beside the fireplace, to the stone at the side of the road from where she patiently observes life unfolding around her. As she changes places, the places that formerly belonged to her – and her alone – are filled by absence.
ARNIS ALEINIKOVAS:
“FRAGMENTED REALITIES”
A performance created especially for ZOOM that reflects on the fragmentation of reality we are living in now. Where are you, when you open your phone to check your social media, weather, or email? In which reality? Does reality change when you share it on ZOOM? “Fragmented Realities” explores Heisenberg’s statement - "reality only exists when it's observed". We all have different observational tools so how can we describe what is real?
Duration ± 25 minutes
Concept, directions, live editing Arnis Aleinikovas (LT)
Performing: Alžbeta Novakova (CZ), Jachym Sura (CZ), Sai Sai (JP)
NOAH HELLWIG: "MULTIPLEX REALITIES"
Multiplex Realities is two one-to-one performances that work with the imagination, the senses and virtual reality technology to present multiple perceptions and layers of reality simultaneously. Performer and audience meet on both a social and a sensorial level. It also functions as a live art installation piece since the actions happening inside the piece can be followed by an audience outside. Audiences follow two bodies negotiating a meeting. The way that meeting develops changes the physicality of their bodies.
WEDNESDAY 12 APRIL 2023
FRIDAY 14 APRIL 2023
HENRIQUE GOMES: "MANOBRAS DA CARNE"
Duas mulheres marcam um encontro. A hora marcada: agora. O lugar é a casa de Marta, escritora de policiais, casada com Richard. Tocam à campainha. É Bianca, amante de Richard. Depois de uma troca de olhares e de algumas palavras, as aparentes rivais apercebem-se de que o homem que as une é a prova viva das suas diferenças, o que as intriga. Num diálogo mordaz, recheado de ironias e de enganos, Marta e Bianca dissecam as relações humanas, a ambição, a dor, o desejo... Afinal, de que se alimenta e sobrevive uma relação amorosa? Do prazer carnal? do estímulo intelectual? Ou de ambos?
MAIJU TAINIO: "GILGAMESH - MORTAL"
Find the copper box,
Grasp the brass lock,
open the lid of secrets,
lift up the chalkboard and read,
how Gilgamesh wandered through ordeals.
“Don’t touch the art!” GILGAMESH - MORTAL overturns this iron-clad prohibition and invites you to take a transgressive step into a unique, kinesthetic experimance in miniature scale - with all your senses! Directed and choreographed by Finnish puppetmaster Maiju Tainio.
SATURDAY 15 APRIL 2023
DIRECTORS
Issam ZEMMOURI is a contemporary dancer and artist in physical expression. He is interested in all kinds of poetic movements. Originally from Morocco, he founded of the Movement to Dance Project in Amsterdam. He has worked and trained in Morocco and France and worked with international choreographers from a range of schools specializing in dance and body expression. For the last two years, he has been a permanent member of the ZID Theater troupe in Amsterdam.
Issam Zemmouri
Choreographer and Dancer
Elena VERTEGEL is a dancer, performer and choreographer from Ukraine, who moved to Lisbon in 2019. She has created dance performances for the Ukrainian Dance Theatre, and worked with Thomas Metler and dancers from the Batsheva Dance Company and Ultima Vez Company. She recently performed with Claire Huber at P.A.R.T.S. in Belgium. Beside her creative and stage experiences, Elena communicates her own vision of dance through movement-voice and movement-meaning. She is currently working with Maeva Lambert in Belgium, putting together a performance of “FIXE”.
Elena Vertegel
Choreographer and Dancer
Maeva LAMBERT is a Brussels-based dancer and self-taught choreographer. She trained in dance in Belgium and at the Manufacture d'Aurillac in France. In 2017 she followed the Performact program in Portugal. She is the co-author, with Amandine Vandroth, of Quizas - performance in the public space. Her experience in the field of street performance makes her want to shake up the forms and codes of conventional theatre. Open to new forms of creation, she initiated the Lawaai collective with Elena Vertegel and Sébastien De Buyl, filmmaker and dramaturge.
Maeva Lambert
Dancer
Noah HELLWIG is a freelance dance artist from Sweden who is working in contexts of extended choreography, contemporary dance, performance art, baroque dance, interactive performance and interactive media. His own choreographic work spans participatory performances, immersive environments, mixed-reality performances, sensorial based choreography, deconstructions of dance history, choreography for musicians and ways of embodying relationships with technology. His pieces have been shown at festivals such as Dansenshus and the Stockholm Fringe Festival in Stockholm, Oslo Early, DanseHallerne in Copenhagen, the ICE HOT Nordic Dance Platform in Reykjavik and Temps d’Images at Tanzhaus NRW in Düsseldorf.
Noah Hellwig
Director
Arnis ALEINIKOVAS is a Lithuanian interdisciplinary artist, working in performing arts, media, writing and theatre. He has a B.A. in theatre and film acting from Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania and an M.A. in alternative theatre directing from the academy of Performing Arts in Prague. His work has been seen at art festivals in Germany, the USA and the Czech Republic. His poetry and his first theatre play were published in the Munich cultural magazine “Turtle” and his new performative work "LUCIDITY" has just premiered in Wroclaw, Poland.
Arnis Aleinikovas
Director
Alžběta NOVÁKOVÁ is an artist who is interested in exploring particular aspects of the theatrical process, including documentary theatre. She studied sign language interpreting at Charles University in the Czech Republic as well as Alternative and Puppet Theatre and also trained as a social worker. She is currently studying for a master’s degree at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague with a focus on directing and dramaturgy.
Alžběta Nováková
Artist
Sai SAI is a Japanese actress and performer with a background in theater and modelling and a degree from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. A self-starter and team player, she is an organized, dependable performer. Adept at understanding the relationships between characters, she has performed humorous and serious interpretations of emotional situations, using body movement and gesture.
Sai Sai
Actress
Jáchym SŮRA is an actor and illustrator from the Czech Republic who focuses mainly on theatre improvisation. A graduate of the alternative acting and puppet theatre program at The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, he is a founding member of the Czech National Improvisation Theatre and a lecturer at the School of Improv. His other field of interest is drawing, where he specializes in comics and watercolor illustration.
Jáchym Sůra
Actor & Illustrator
Sílvia ALMEIDA is a Lisbon-based creator and performer. Her professional career began in 2004 with the show Os Lusíadas Rumo Oriente, by Antonio Pires, at the National Theatre. In 2012, as part of the EU Leonardo da Vinci program, she moved to London, where she worked with award-winning company Zecora Ura, as well as ZU.UK, Arbonauts, Eliza Soroga and Beautiful Confusion Collective. She also joined an initiative for new creators called DRIFT and began to develop DO ALTO. In Portugal she has worked with creators such as Teatro o Bando, Inestética, António Pires and Miguel Moreira.
Sílvia Almeida
Director
Marta ABREU studied law for five years while pursuing her interest in acting. She worked with the O Bando theatre group on several projects, touring to Norway, Germany and the Czech Republic. She appeared in Alexandre Lyra Leite's début performance for Companhia Inestética and in several films, including Fanny Ardant’s “Le divan de Stalin” and Halder Gomes’ “Vermelho Monet”. She has been involved in staged readings and radio soap opera and also worked with the theater company Pato Bravo on productions such as “Beautiful House” and “Imperatore".
Marta Abreu
Actress
Henrique GOMES is a Portuguese actor and director with a master's degree in Performing Arts from Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema in Lisbon. From 2014-2017 he attended the "John Frey Studio for Actors" deepening his understanding of the Meisner technique. He has been cast in tv series, short and long films and advertisements and has worked with different theatre groups, including Immersive Gaming Corporate. He has extensive experience of role-playing – the Penal Forum, complaints and conflict management, interrogation techniques – in corporate and vocational fields. He teaches acting at the Escola de Artes DOARTES.
Henrique Gomes
Director
Mafalda AMARAL is a Portuguese actress who trained at ACT-Escola de Atores and at Escola Superior de Teatro Cinema. At the beginning of her career, she worked with Vicente Alves do Ó in the films “Quem me dera” and “Quero-te tanto” and on the tv show “What if it were with you?". Her theatre work includes “Da Imortalidade”, staged by Nuno Nunes, and “Eu não Sou Daix”, written by João Fábio Cabral and staged in 2017 at Teatro do Bairro. In 2020, she participated in the Femicide webseries “O Inferno não tem Travesseiro", written and directed by João Fábio Cabral.
Mafalda Amaral
Actress
Maiju TAINIO is a trailblazer in contemporary Finnish puppetry - a playwright, director, puppeteer and visualist. Working as a theatre visualist has shaped her way of writing and directing. She has performed her award-winning puppetry plays across Europe since 2005. Her work includes site-specific, immersive and applied theatre. She graduated from Turku Arts Academy's puppet theatre program in 2008. In Finland, she is an active member of Tehdas Teatteri and Aura of Puppets. In 2021 Tainio and her group won the state award for performing arts for Book of Rooms, an immersive multisensory spectacle.
Maiju Tainio
Puppetmaster
Suresh NAMPURI is a writer and director… and a physicist fascinated by string theory. He has conceived, written, produced and directed a range of theatrical interventions including political theatre of the Arab spring, modern adaptations of Greek tragedies and other classics, movies in Paris, Lisbon and Iceland, online theatre, originals for international theatre festivals, and a radio play.For the last three months, he has been striding indefatigably across Lisbon, talking to all the people and the venues that will allow JáFest to take shape.
Suresh Nampuri
JÁ founder