On suspension of walls: towards a humanist agenda on marginality

ABSTRACT

This conversation traces the creation of Todos Festival, one of the most important international socially engaged multi-arts festivals in Southern Europe. In dialogue with artistic director, Madalena Victorino, the festival will be portrayed as a space for encounter and performative exploration of difference, linking marginalised migrant and minority communities to Lisbon's theatre scape and cultural ecology. We discuss modalities of transfiguring difficult (local) realities into performance on the interface between centres and peripheries.

KEYWORDS:

• Socially engaged theatre
• theatre and migration
• refugee performance
• community festival

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Szabolcs Musca is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Theatre Research (CET) at the University of Lisbon (Portugal), and Founding Director of New Tides Platform (UK), currently leading an international research project on theatre and migration in Europe. He is a Project Lead of Migrant Dramaturgies Network, an international research network composed of academics, theatre-makers and organisations. He holds a PhD from the University of Bristol and he worked as a researcher, teacher and theatre critic for over 10 years, both in the UK and continental Europe.

Notes

1. Maria João Guardão, Contemporary Performing Arts in Portugal: An Overview (Brussels: IETM, 2018): 11. https://www.ietm.org/en/publications/contemporary-performing-arts-in-portugal-an-overview (accessed 23 August 2018).

2. Miguel Abreu is General Director of the Todos Festival.

3. Manuela Júdice is director of Lisbon City Council's ‘Lisbon Encounters the World’ Office (GLEM).

4. Giacomo Scalisi is an Italian-born actor, director and curator, long-term partner and co-creator of Madalena Victorino. He is an artistic director of various large-scale international theatre festivals and projects in Europe and a co-artistic director of the Todos Festival in Lisbon.

5. Monica Calle is a Portuguese actress and theatre director, founder of Casa Conveniente (established in 1992), a theatre company working with communities in one of Lisbon's most deprived areas, Chelas/Marvila.

6. Marlene Freitas is a theatre-maker originally from Cape Verde. She is a co-founder of the contemporary dance company Compass and P.O.R.K, a production house based in Lisbon. She presented her performance Bacchae – Prelude to a purge in the now closed Miguel Bombarda Psychiatric Hospital (Lisbon) as part of Todos Festival 2017. The production was a performative reflection on the hospital's collection of wax figures depicting various pathological cases.

7. Vânia Rovisco is a performer dancer working on installations and durational performance projects exploring concepts of affection and relations. Her production entitled Silos de carros e estradas giratórias [Car parks and road junctions] was presented at the Todos Festival in 2014.

8. Passajar [Passage/Passing] created by Margarida Gonçalves, Maria Ramos, Estêvão Antunes, Júnior, facilitator Madalena Victorino and the participants: Birivan Moustafa, Haitham Khatib, Josephine Manjonjo, Jugaulond Manira, Júnior Manira Shema, Khoshnaf Alosh, Millicent Matambanadro, Miriam Santos, Mirna Moustafa, Mohamed Yahya Dabah, Mustafa, Patrícia Quirós, Rohaf Alosh, Valerie Mayo.

9. Todo o Mundo é um Palco [All the World is a Stage] based on Shakespeare's As You Like It, directed by Beatriz Batarda and Marco Martins, premiered on 17 November 2017 at Teatro da Trindade, Lisbon.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian: [Research Grant 2016]; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia: [Research Fellowship Grant, 2017].