LEARNING TO SWIM draws on the act of learning to swim to create a spectacular dramaturgy where different human strata intersect –learning, identity, memory, expectations, affection. Here, learning serves as a metaphor for a new space, a blank space. The challenge of overcoming a task and the risk of the unknown.
LEARNING TO SWIM pursues a performative language located in a physical and visual realm. Space opens up and multiplies. A summer night brings together actors and audiences. The actors inside the pool, the audience outside. The actors around the pool, the audience inside.
original idea Alexander Kelly/UK and Paula Diogo developed, co-created and performed by Alfredo Martins, Carlos Alves, Cláudia Gaiolas, Estelle Franco/BE, Masako Hattori/ES and Paula Diogo dramaturgical support Alexander Kelly video Masako Hattori set design F. Ribeiro costumes Ana Limpinho light design and sound: Mikko Hynninen/FI photography José Frade, Rui de Freitas and Masako Hattori executive production Meninos Exemplares co-production Pato Profissional Lda/Má-Criação, Maria Matos Teatro Municipal, O Espaço do Tempo and Les Bains :: Connective
supported by Instituto Franco-Português and RE.AL funding Ministério da Cultura/DGArtes.
OPeninG
(closed-down) swimming pools in Avenida de Roma (Lisbon PT), June 2010presented at Les Bains :: Connective in Belgium (while under development).