DE PÉS DESCALÇOS NA TERRA
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
An artistic residency where the artists, coming from an urban environment, develop a creative process with the community of an isolated village: Montalvão, in Portugal. The project will be based on sustainable principles, developing an artistic object that leaves the smallest ecological footprint possible, through a non–capitalist, decentralized and democratic exchange. The priority will be to invest in a revolution based on nature and community, as the central raw materials of creation.
Geographical Scope
Project Region
Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Description of the project
Summary
This project will be developed entirely in Montalvão, a village in the district of Portalegre, in Portugal. This border village of high Alentejo will host the artistic residency for a total of 60 days, in collaboration with the communities and their spaces. The experience will result in the presentation of a documentary theatre performance and later in the making of a documentary film.
Montalvão was chosen for being an isolated village, whose reduced contact with urban life allows the access to local organic material, something that in big cities is almost impossible, and for the privileged relationship of the creator/director with the place, which will bring a greater emotional dimension to the work by the existence of memories and affective ties with the area.
This project arises from the group's need to explore new habits and paths for a sustainable theatrical creation, seeking to assume a more responsible and conscious position. The premise for the creation is the use of historical documents, accounts of real facts, and the memories and experiences of the community and the artists themselves, collected in contact with the community. In addition to the important contact with nature. This way, the team will try to leave the smallest ecological footprint possible during the process.
In order for the project and its identity to have a greater reach, the whole process of artistic residency will be recorded in a documentary film that, once finished, will travel through film festivals and other cultural spaces. The video component will have a fundamental role in contributing to raise awareness for the environmental urgency, and the need for Art to also find even the most imperfect solutions, by focusing on the team's effort in leaving a minimal ecological footprint in the creation of a show.
Key objectives for sustainability
The purpose of developing a laboratory where artists may appropriate new artistic languages and customs in an unknown habitat for many, as is the case of the rural environment in general, is one of the objectives of the creation of an artistic residency and of the project as a whole.
Sustainability, despite being a current issue, is still an unknown concept in its amplitude to many people. This laboratory, through the experience of the six actors and the other creatives, also aims to alert to the complexity of this term. From a work of research and questioning, we intend to deepen and make known the concept of community sustainability, and also try to prove that as it is possible to put it into practice in daily life, it is equally possible to do so in an artistic creation.
One of the project's main objectives is to achieve a smaller environmental footprint. In order to achieve this, the artists are willing to make the commitment to get around by walking, riding their bikes and/or using public transports; to take advantage of the region's natural resources, favouring the consumption of local products; and, as far as artistic needs are concerned, to try and ensure that everything is conceived using raw materials and labour from the village; as well as reducing energy and water consumption, and consumable materials to the minimum necessary.
The very exchange relationship to be established between artists and inhabitants will invoke values of a sustainable way of life, with the sharing of knowledge and experiences. Thus, the whole creative process will seek to meet a circular economy, moving away from disproportionate capitalism.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
The submitted project, as a product of artistic creation, will aim the public presentation through two different objects: the first one is the presentation of two sessions of a show in the village, as a display of the intangible material generated in the laboratory process; the other one is the creation and diffusion of a documentary film, which will report the whole process of the residency. While the show will be conceived with the purpose of being presented only in the village to its inhabitants and their families – who usually return to the village at the end of the Summer, when this presentation is scheduled –, the documentary film will be created to be shared on wider platforms, contributing for this project to reach a wider audience and to fight the ephemerality of the process, which is usually one of the deficits of the theatrical creation.
The different activities proposed show the disciplinary amplitude of this creation, crossing artistic areas such as theatre, specifically documentary and sensorial theatre, and new media, with the making of the documentary of the research process in the artistic residency and of the shows, widening the reach of this relation with the community and promoting reflection.
Within the foreseen stages for the artistic residency, what assumes a greater relevance is this research process is the daily work experience by the artists in the main businesses and services of the village (handcrafting, agricultural work, hunting and herding), as well as an assiduous and constant connection with the people who inhabit the locality and its surroundings.
Key objectives for inclusion
Montalvão, considered by many the "village of the end of the world”, was chosen for its picturesque and rural essence. Located in high Alentejo, it is one of the most isolated portuguese villages, being very close to the border with Spain, which is usually closed. With only 290 inhabitants, the village has lost 34.4% of its population in the last 10 years.
Montalvão was also chosen for this project because of its large land area, 123.87 km2, which is mostly occupied only by its flora. The isolated village’s area is larger than many urban municipalities such as Lisbon, however it has only 3.6 inhabitants per km2 and most of them are over 70 years old.
Given their isolation and their age range of its inhabitants, the people from Montalvão have very little access to Art. Therefore, one of our objectives is to integrate them in all stages of the process. The voices of the locals will play a central role in the project, and their contribution will certainly be in the documentary and the show.
The chosen team for the project is formed by artists of different ages, genders, backgrounds, and professional experiences. We believe that this diversity will bring many benefits to the creation: the contact between multiethnic and interracial artists with and without rural experience, and the relations that will be established between them and the residents of the village – all of these factors enrich the artistic work. It is also important to include representative elements of diversity in the team, as the project will take place in a small and isolated environment, where the presence of artists who bring representation of diversity may raise wider awareness and acceptance in the population.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
Since the main objectives of the project are based on a sustainable artistic creation with the community and the characteristics of the village, the conciliation of the three points is present precisely in our objective.
The routine of urban daily life, which is reflected in the current artistic creation, brings a greater need to develop truly relevant projects supported in sectorial areas that promote higher versatility. By allying ourselves with these sectors (restaurants, agriculture, pastoralism, among others), and by developing this project in an environment that is foreign to most of the team, we believe that we are contributing to greater sustainability, inclusion, decentralization and democratization of art. Having as premise the development of a more sustainable work – through a greater investment in the creation and support of small communities in a non–capitalist way, and seeking to take the theatrical art to regions where this cultural matter is neither democratized, nor recurrent –, we intend to create an artistic object that arises essentially from community work, stimulating an active relation of exchange. Exchange will be not only the starting point but also the main goal of this creative project. The search for a close relationship between the inhabitants of Montalvão and the team also intends to aims to sensitize the latter to the value and importance of artistic activity, improving, in our belief, the life quality of the population.
It will be a process accessible and intelligible to all who are willing to attend, regardless of social class, level of education and physical (dis)abilities they may have. We believe in art with objectives of social responsibility and of wider and easier reach, without the existence of niches and restrictions. Therefore, we are looking forward to make ourselves available to share this experience with all of those who wish to integrate it.
