Creations

RAIA

2021

As a new creation for the first half of 2021, we carried out the “RAIA” project, directed by Ana Vitorino in co-creation with Inês de Carvalho, and which took us to northern border territories to research and reflect on the border while, at the same time, dividing line and inhabited thickness. There we witnessed how geopolitical borders can lose meaning in the face of proximity, coexistence and shared culture between neighboring Portuguese and Spanish communities, and also how the Covid-19 pandemic impacted this reality like never before.

On both sides of the border, we visited the villages that once belonged to the Couto Misto - an autonomous territory with its own laws, which for ten centuries remained outside the concept of "nationality" -, we collected material on the invisible heritage shared by both sides of the Raia, and we promoted meetings with neighboring Portuguese and Spanish communities.

This work was also the basis for our participation in the Portuguese event of the European project “Moving Borders / ARK”, of which the Teatro Municipal do Porto was the national partner. For the "School at the edge of nowhere" conceived in this event, we built a "Map of Interruptions in the borough of Campanhã" and, on July 2, 2021 at Teatro Rivoli, we shared our experiences of border and neighbouring life - in Raia and in our city - in an interactive "class-performance".

This class-performance has now been adapted as a "performative conference" in English for a presentation on June 24, 2022 at the International Conference "Shifting Centres", promoted by the IFTR - International Federation for Theater Research in Reykjavik (Iceland).

"Miscos e Promíscuos em terras de ninguém", the movie adaptation of this project, directed by Sara Allen, is availabe on our Vimeo channel.