Paula Diogo imagined the series ABOUT REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING to talk about how memory operates in our lives. LANDSCAPE (Paisagem), in co-creation with Tónan Quito and the collective Foguetes Maravilha, is the second moment of this cycle which started in 2018.
A conversation about two short pieces by Harold Pinter served as a starting point for this show. In both, a middle-aged couple dialogues (or monologues) about episodes that only one of them seems to remember or that both remember very differently. These pieces served as a motto to reflect on how memory operates in our lives: what we choose to remember or forget, what we are able to remember or forget. Out of habit, conditioning, or self-preservation, by accident. We are our memories. And if our memories are nothing but the product of our imagination (as André Breton once said), then who are we?
Two formats of the show were produced and are available for touring:
LANDSCAPE, the show, was presented in March 2021 at Teatro Municipal do Porto (TMP Online) and was conceived to be set in a theater room, conventional stage or studio.
LANDSCAPE, the movie, seeks to provide a visual experience distinct from a plain recording of the show. The movie invites the viewer to wander around the universe of the two characters, and at the same time proposes relations of proximity and complicity while evoking the poetry proper of cinematographic discourse in a hybrid object.
creation Paula Diogo, Renato Linhares and Tónan Quito, in dialogue with Alex Cassal and Stella Rabello text Renato Linhares video planning João Bento, Renato Linhares e Stella Rabello performance Paula Diogo e Tónan Quito light design Wilma Moutinho scenic space Fernando Ribeiro sound creation João Bento costumes Miss Suzie construction of scenography Josué Maia stage photography João Tuna video and editing a-tundra Filmes executive production Vanda Cerejo and Carlos Alves co-production Má-Criação, Teatro Municipal do Porto and Centro Cultural de Belém co-production residency O Espaço do Tempo artistic residency support Companhia Olga Roriz, Causas Comuns, Desvio/Gui Garrido
project financed by Portuguese Republic – Culture / Directorate-General for the Arts
Má-Criação is a structure supported by the Lisbon City Council and housed in Espaço Alkantara.
Paula Diogo’s work is supported by apap – FEMINIST FUTURES – a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union.
OPENING
Teatro Municipal do Porto, Oporto PT, March 2021