Galeria Municipal do Porto opens the exhibition "9kg de Oxigénio". The exhibition is the result from the challenge launched by Galeria Municipal do Porto to the project "Uma Certa Falta de Coerência" to develop an exercise that reflects on the relationship between independent curatorial practice, self-managed by artists, and an institutional exhibition context. In this sense, "Uma Certa Falta de Coerência", which has been developing its work independently since 2008, will present this exhibition in which it will "test the production policies and ways of understanding, taking as its starting point the exercise of survival under conditions adverse and subject to institutional oppression". "Uma Certa Falta de Coerência" will transfer the atmosphere of the small space it occupies on Rua dos Caldeireiros, where air breathability is often questioned, and will feature works by artists who, over the past few years, have collaborated with the project: Babi Badalov, Daniel Barroca, António Bolota, Camilo Castelo Branco, Merlin Carpenter, Rolando Castellón, June Crespo, Luisa Cunha, Stephan Dillemuth, Loretta Fahrenholz, Pedro G. Romero, Dan Graham, Alisa Heil, Mike Kelley, Ruchama Noorda, Silvestre Pestana, Josephine Pryde and Xoan Torres.
Galeria Municipal do Porto opens the exhibition "Depois do Estouro", curated by Tomás Abreu and results from the "Expo'98 no Porto" competition project. "Depois do Estouro" was selected by an independent jury of the Galeria Municipal do Porto’s artistic team, composed by Daniela Marinho, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Miguel Ferrão, who directs with Eduardo Guerra the artistic project Musa paradisiaca, and Nuno Faria, artistic director of Museu da Cidade. This exposition arises from the effects that the socioeconomic and technological developments by the end of the last century had on contemporary culture and "proposes a reflection on paradoxes of their consequences, while challenging notions of time manipulation". It brings together a set of works, produced at the end of the last decade by 13 young artists who grew up in Portugal in the 1990s, which "focus on issues of humanity, physical space and time": Alice dos Reis, Francisco M. Gomes, Henrique Pavão, Hugo de Almeida Pinho, Igor Jesus, Jorge Jácome, Lucia Prancha, Mariana Rocha, Mariana Vilanova, Pedro Huet, Rodrigo Gomes, Sara Graça and Tomás Abreu.
The exhibition marks the 30 years of the Foundation and the 20th anniversary of Museu de Serralves, presenting the programme of the Performing Arts Service between 1999 and today. It was born and developed through compromises between seemingly irreconcilable objectives: on the one hand, the need to present concrete data (names, dates, images) that showed where, how and when certain artists performed, and mirrored the pioneering character of the importance given to the performing arts by Serralves; on the other hand, it translates what seems to immediately distinguish these arts: the implication of the spectator, the eminently collaborative spirit, the "here and now" as opposed to "this was". The compromises included by putting on display documentation and letting its visitors know who has performed in Serralves (and when, how and where), while presenting elements that evoked the “here and now.” The documentation was incorporated through a process of collaboration: once the programmers Cristina Grande and Pedro Rocha selected the images and words that best illustrated the last twenty years of their programming (between stage photography and graphic materials that announced and accompanied the activities), it was commissioned to a graphic designer, Luís Teixeira, to create a book that would never be published, whose pages would be exclusively presented on the walls of Biblioteca de Serralves, along with the recordings of shows and props to which these programmers considered to be of special importance. At the same time, it was decided to occupy a considerable area of the library’s mezzanine with an object that would immediately evoke the idea of theatre and could "trigger" the viewer: a small stage waiting to be occupied. The visitor can and should sit down to read (programming texts, key books to understand the performing arts today) and, most importantly, to hear testimonials and memories of spectacles written by people especially attentive to Serralves' performing arts programming - between artists, musicians, writers and current or former directors and programmers of theatres and music and performance festivals - and then read by two actors. These testimonies came to reconcile the irreconcilable: the memories of certain shows, or of concerts and performances - necessarily subjective, incomplete, fragmentary - constitute the necessary counterpoint to data, dates, chronologies, documentation. It is largely thanks to them that this exhibition is not just about "what it was"; it is also now, and it is also here.
After founding it in the past season, TNSJ wants to consolidate the steps taken to create a Drama Club, in order to make it a space where young people under 18 who feel attracted by this art will be welcomed, encouraged to stay and learn. Under the guidance of Nuno Cardoso, Nuno M Cardoso and Emílio Gomes, the improvisations to which young people will be challenged are the starting point for a work around Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.
In a good movie session, before the arrival of sound films, the music was performed live. This experience is not only relived but also updated in the cine-concerts performed in the 8th edition of Invicta.Música.Filmes, with new music written for two recently restored silent films. J'Accuse, a pacifist film by French filmmaker Abel Gance, is accompanied by a soundtrack created by his compatriot Philippe Schoeller and will be premiered in Portugal, by Orquestra Sinfónica. A few days later, the Remix Ensemble and Digitópia present the result of the challenge that Casa da Música posed to the composer from Porto, Igor C. Silva, to create a score for a Portuguese silent film from 1927, the crime film O Táxi Nº 9297 by Reinaldo Ferreira, a journalist better known as Repórter X. The soundtracks of some of the best-known films in history are featured in the concert of Banda Sinfónica Portuguesa, including music by Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone and John Williams. The opening of the festival is a fascinating A Trip to the Moon through the lens of a pioneer of French cinema, Georges Méliès, a science fiction from 1902 also presented in a cine-concert with new music created here at Casa da Música by members of Digitópia.
Released in 1919, the film J'Accuse gave international fame to filmmaker Abel Gance, a reference figure in silent French cinema. The montage includes scenes shot on the battlefield, placing the love plot in the context of World War I. Considered a pacifist film, it was recently recovered and gave rise to Philippe Schoeller's original soundtrack, commissioned as part of the celebrations of the centenary of the war. This is the opportunity to see a masterpiece of European silent cinema while the orchestra performs the new soundtrack live, which perfectly highlights the disturbing images of the film. “Led by Christian Schumann's fervent direction, J’accuse is a perfect marriage between music and cinema” Le Monde
“I was born twice: I was first one thing, and then the other.” These are the opening words of MDLSX, a kaleidoscopic solo performance by Silvia Calderoni, staged by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò, founders of the Italian company Motus. Intense and defying, it countians literary evocations from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, several texts by Pasolini, and seminal books on queer theory, such as Gender Trouble by Judith Butler, or Counter-sexual Manifesto by Paul B. Preciado. Using the power of her androgynous presence and a format reminiscent of a DJ/VJ set, Silvia Calderoni weaves these literary references with her biography, home videos and the pop music that influenced her, from The Smiths to Placebo, from Talking Heads to Vampire Weekend and The Dresden Dolls. Shattering the concepts of gender and narrative, MDLSX is a paean to the freedom of becoming and being an other, beyond any border or prejudice.
Devendra Banhart is back to Portugal in 2020. The American, who presented his new album in September, will perform on February 15th at Hard Club. In this show, the talented and charismatic American artist will premiere his work, Ma, whose debut single, “Kantori Ongaku”, can already be heard, and seen, on his official YouTube page. Bursting with autobiographical vignettes, Ma displays a change of sound compared to previous albums, revealing a more captivating story-telling and emotional intimacy. The album follows Ape in Pink Marble (2016) and presents itself as Banhart's 10th long-playing album. Over 13 tracks, sung in English, Spanish and Portuguese, Banhart favours organic sounds that, along with strings, woodwinds and keyboards, to accompany his voice and guitar.