“In the last five years of her life, my grandmother lost her faculties very quickly. She, who had always been a very active and independent woman, gradually saw her body and mind refuse to obey her in the usual way. In an effort to make her remember who she was, my aunt got her a notebook, where she would write down pieces of her history: her name, her husband’s name, where she lived now and where she had lived before, where she had studied, her place of birth, where she had worked, how many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren she had, followed by their names, etc. I think this could be the starting point of a show about the tricks that we devise to organize our memories and bring them to light.” (Paula Diogo)
Paula Diogo invited Estelle Franco, Mariana Ricardo, Masako Hattori and Sónia Baptista to this inquiry into memory. The show aims to be the first chapter of a trilogy inspired by the anthropologist Marc Augé’s book Les formes de l’oubli. Three shows that reflect on the way memories operate 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, as well as by accident. We are our memories. And if our memories are nothing but a product of our imagination (as André Breton once said) then who are we?
project director Paula Diogo co-creation Estelle Franco/BE, Mariana Ricardo, Masako Hattori/ES, Paula Diogo and Sónia Baptista performance Estelle Franco, Masako Hattori, Paula Diogo and Sónia Baptista light design Daniel Worm set design Bárbara F. Fernandes and FRAME Colectivo photography João Tuna dramaturgical support Alex Cassal executive production Daniela Ribeiro co-production Má-Criação and Maria Matos Teatro Municipal
development support: Arquipélago – Centro de Artes Contemporâneas, Câmara Municipal de Lisboa / Pólo Cultural das Gaivotas / Boavista, Causas Comuns, Centro de Criação de Candoso, O Espaço do Tempo, Fórum Dança financial support Governo de Portugal – DGArtes and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
Two other shows will follow ABOUT REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING: AUTUMN STATION, with Paula Diogo and Alexander Kelly, and LANDSCAPE, with Paula Diogo and Tónan Quito.
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Maria Matos Teatro Municipal (Lisboa), March 2018
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Festival Gil Vicente (Coimbra), June 2018
Festival CITEMOR (Montemor-o-Velho), July 2018