The Porto International Puppet Festival (FIMP), which will take place between October 7 and 16, will question “O Mistério da Vida”, in the 14 shows that it will present on various stages of the city.
At a press conference, the artistic director of the FIMP, Igor Gandra, explained that this edition closes the cycle “Science and Politics of Animated Matter”.
“While we were putting together the program, we discovered that an important part of the shows and projects that come to visit us contained in some way that idea of reflecting or questioning the limits of the living and the non-living,” he said.
Igor Gandra considered that “puppets, and objects in general, are prodigal in breaking what is a kind of last binary stronghold. The dead and the living configure, in contemporary society, a final and inexorable binary condition. The puppet, the animated matter in its ancestral connection with magic, religion and, later, the arts, seems willing to defy this law, at least in the symbolic field”.
The official highlighted, among others, the show “Still Life”, by Tin Grabnar, from the Ljubljana Puppet Theater, which will open the festival.
“It is one of the most interesting things that has been done with puppets in recent years. The piece is very well manipulated, it raises very interesting questions related to nature and animals. The protagonists are embalmed rabbits, transformed into puppets. The play takes place in an ultra-realistic set of settings, and the manipulation, among other qualities, is very well executed and rigorous,” he said.
This is a national premiere of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, considered a European reference in this art, which will go on stage at the Grand Auditorium of Rivoli — Teatro Municipal do Porto, on October 7 and 8.
In this edition there will be a total of seven national and seven foreign shows, from Slovenia, South Korea, Belgium, Spain, the Czech Republic, Chile, France and Portugal.
The plays will be presented at the Teatro Municipal do Porto, Teatro Carlos Alberto, Coliseu do Porto, as well as at the Teatro de Belomonte, headquarters of the Teatro de Marionetas do Porto company, and also at the Teatro de Ferro.
In addition to these spaces, all located in Porto, the program also includes the Constantino Nery Theater, in Matosinhos, which hosts some of the 31 performances.
On October 8 and 9, the Spaniard Xavier Bobés presents “Corpus”, which goes through the presence of “a sculptural piece and a manipulator, to which a musician also joins”.
It is followed by “T”, by Jordí Galí, which “derives from the investigation between the body and objects such as beams, stairs or tires. Each movement printed and intrinsic to the piece is made in relation to parameters such as the mass, volume and density of the objects. On stage there are a series of objects, artifacts that are manipulated by an artist in balance in the built structure live and in real time”.
It is a national premiere and the first presence of the Spanish artist in Portuguese territory, also scheduled for October 8 and 9, at the Café Teatro do Teatro do Campo Alegre.
On October 12, at the Carlos Alberto Theater, Teatro de Ferro and Teatro de Marionetas present “Mayakovski — O Regresso do Futuro”, which is the result of a co-creation of two companies from Porto, which have already toured some national stages , and had “a very remarkable comeback on the part of the public”.
On October 13 and 14, the show “Cukoo”, by the South Korean Jaha Koo, will take to the stage of the Great Auditorium of Rivoli.
“Between pots of rice, through bittersweet and humorous dialogue, Jaha will guide us on a journey through the last 20 years of South Korean life, it will be well worth going to the national premiere of the work,” said the artist. director of FIMP, emphasizing that “for lovers of movies like ‘Parasitas’ or series like ‘Juego de calamares’, this is a perfect proposal”.
At the close of the festival, on October 15 and 16, the play “How to Convert to Stone” will be presented, by the Chilean Manuela Infante, which “translates an analytical look at rocks, which as non-living beings can function as models for a different type of resistance”.
The program also includes puppet construction and manipulation workshops and the screening of the documentary “Na Palheta com Dom Roberto”.
The testimonial film will be broadcast in the upper garden of the Trindade metro station, on October 15.
Source: Observadora
