DATE AND VENUE
22.11.2017, 20.30
23.11.2017, 20.30
Moda Sahnesi
Lasts app. 45’; no intermission.
English with Turkish surtitles.
Suitable for ages 12+.
- Co-Produced by: DeVIR / CAPa
- Written & Directed by: Pedro Penim
- Light Design: Rui Monteiro
- Video Design: Jorge Jácome
- Executive Productor: Bernardo de Lacerda
- Production: Bruno Reis, Teatro Praga
- Performers: Bernardo de Lacerda, Frederico Serpa, Pedro Penim
In collaboration with Encontros de Novas Dramaturgias (Teatro Gil Vicente, Coimbra), Festival Temps d’Image (Lisbon), Teatro Praga (With the financial support of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture)
This performance was a commission from the 3rd edition of the Festival Encontros do DeVIR / CAPa in collaboration with Encontros de Novas Dramaturgias (Coimbra) and Teatro Praga.
In Istanbul and Lisbon two words echo each other: ‘Hüzün’ on the one hand and ‘saudade’ on the other, signifying a sense of melancholy, a denial of a painful present, longing for a withered happiness. Many other cultures too speak of it – and often present it as a diagnosis. In Buenos Aires it’s called ‘mufa’, in Moscow there’s ‘toska’, ‘blues’ in Memphis, ‘hiraeth’ in Wales, ‘mestizia’ in Turin – but it is Portugal and Turkey where the feeling is particularly prevalent. When the Portuguese director Pedro Penim moved to Istanbul two years ago, he was struck by that mood and immediately felt at home – and inspired to write about the similarity. Whether in the ennui of Alexandria, the ghostliness of Prague, the glumness of Glasgow, the dispiritedness of Boston, that sentiment of Lisbon and Istanbul is found in most places where a glorious past is yearned for – and where tensions of the present can be explained by delving into history and searching for answers. Before is a performance that begins in 2017 and travels back in time through an atlas of melancholy.
PEDRO PENIM
Stage director and performer. Born in 1975. BA in Theatre from Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema, Lisbon. MA in Arts and Cultural Management at ISCTE-IUL. He is a founding member and the artistic director of Teatro Praga, the company with which he has won several awards and prizes in Theatre (Golden Globe theatre award 2015, SPA authors 2012 award for the best Portuguese play of the year with “Israel”, the Teatro SIC 12 years prize 2005, Acarte Prize 2003, the 2003 Teatro na Década award). His work as a stage director and actor extends to the areas of writing, translation and education (Centre International de Formation en Arts du Spectacle - Brussels; SP Escola de Teatro - São Paulo, Brazil; SALT Galata and Kumbaracı 50–Istanbul, Turkey; Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema–Lisbon; Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espetáculo–Porto; Balleteatro - Porto, among others) and he has had his works presented in the most prestigious theatres in Portugal and well as in other countries such as France, Italy, Brazil, UK, China, Germany, Spain, Slovakia, Turkey, Israel, Slovenia and Hungary. He was a guest director at Capitals / Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian at Capitals in Discussion - Lisbon, curated by Jan Ritsema and Bojana Cvejić, and on the project It Will Be What We Make It (composed by an international group of theoreticians and artists), at the and was recently a juror at the multidisciplinary festival Danse Élargie (Théâtre de La Ville, Paris). Outside Teatro Praga he worked with names such as Forced Entertainment - UK (Quizoola!) Tg. Stan - Belgium (Point Blank), Tim Etchells - UK (The Quiet Volume, Festival Alkantara) and Portuguese directors Ricardo Pais, Antonino Solmer, José Wallenstein, Nuno Carinhas, a.o.
