You held my hand and told me not to be afraid. How can I not be afraid?
That’s the question I’m asking myself now.
Fear is an animal. I don’t know where it comes from or what shape it takes. It changes its appearance, sneaks up on me when I least expect it and comes out of my eyes and mouth. Sometimes it takes my breath away.
Today my fear, like yours, I know, is a fear of the future. Do you think this is possible?
I’m sorry, I’m not making any sense.
I’m going to start again.
WHAT IS TO COME imagines a conversation between a father and daughter about aging processes and transformations in the body and landscape.
It also talks about the right to look at the sea and the changes that have made this right exclusive over the years.
Starting from the feeling of permanent crisis that affects us all, I try to understand where different generations can meet, recalling collective movements and believing in hope as an engine for action.
I started with Jacinto Lucas Pires to invent voices for these characters. This is where we are now.
There are three references that run through the work at the moment (without yet knowing how they will materialize in the play): the documentary Continuar a Viver – Os índios da Meia-Praia by António da Cunha Telles with the famous scene in which a group of people move a house by carrying it in their arms, the book Hope in the Dark by the American writer Rebecca Solnit and the book Habiter en Oiseau by the French philosopher Vinciane Despret.
At the intersection of the three, I try to discover ways of reading the world through affection that can help us deal with a disappearing world.
Paula Diogo
creation and performance Paula Diogo in dialog with Jacinto Lucas Pires dramaturgy support Alex Cassal set design and props Paula Diogo photos Masako Hattori and Pedro Lacerda light design Zé Rui video Masako Hattori production Má-Criação and DeVIR CAPa
OPENING
Encontros do DeVIR, Loulé PT, October 2023