The A Porta festival will once again animate Leiria with a hundred activities between June 11 and 18, in an edition designed to give new dynamics to the historic center, assumes the organization.
The program includes concerts, workshops, installations, exhibitions, themed dinners, fairs and experiences for all ages, the novelty this year being the location of the two main stages in the city’s historic squares, said Miguel Ferraz, one of the producers of the festival. , to the agency Lusa.
“The main stage starts from the Luís de Camões Garden and takes place in the Sé de Leiria square; the secondary stage leaves the Civic Center and takes place in the Terreiro. The stages are linked by this Rua Direita which, in the end, is one of the synthesis of our work this year”, he explained.
In its eighth edition, A Porta wants to “think the street”, that is, Rua Direita, as Rua Barão Viamonte is known, a kind of “central nervous system” of the historic quarter.
“The inhabitants of Leiria, merchants and people who use the street, what do they want from this street? If it is a meeting place to be and share or if it is a ‘highway’”, asks Miguel Ferraz.
To do this, a space will be created in the Civic Center, a “coexistence and coexistence area”, where there will be conversations and interviews with guests and passers-by. The intention is that the ideas and proposals for Rua Direita are “debated publicly and in the community.”
Locating the stages at the ends of a central axis of the festival was an old ambition:
“Luckily, we managed to make this happen. Seeing people circulating from one side to the other and through the cross streets, doing almost a ‘ping-pong’ between stages, it will be a different and interesting dynamic to see how it works ”, she anticipates.
The musical program includes artists such as the Italian-African Shunagi, Femme Fallafel, Unsafe Space Garden, Dino d’Santiago, Puta da Silva, Cave Story, Sunflowers or L’Homme Statue.
Different performances, comic magic, ‘stand up paddle’ on the River Lis, sound massage, Pilates for children, dance for adults and multiple creative workshops are other proposals at A Porta.
“They will be a good representation of what the festival has built in the last seven editions”, believes the producer.
On Sunday, June 18, the action moves to the Jardim da Vala Real, for “another component of contemplation and with Gira Coletivo, Brazilian girls closely linked to samba and with a lot of percussion. There is going to be a good Sambódromo”.
Porta estimates that in the 2022 edition it received up to 15,000 people – it is the festival with the most media coverage in Leiria, according to the organization, which cites data from the communication consultancy Cision – and continues to want to “‘open wide’ mentalities ” and “open the doors that are closed or through which we pass every day but do not enter”.
“There are positive things that we have realized,” said Miguel Ferraz. For example: the closed stores that were used for activities in previous years are fewer and fewer.
The stores are “being rented or bought for new business” which, “despite being a difficulty for the festival”, turns out to be “a very positive thing”.
“It means that not only our work, but that of so many other people who are in their shops every day, has paid off and that the historic center is once again becoming a place of interest,” he stressed.
The indicators that place the festival as the most popular in Leiria reflect that A Porta “already has quite a considerable name at the national level”.
“Many artists ask a lot to play at the festival because they identify with its genesis and its mission. It is always a responsibility”, concluded Miguel Ferraz.
Source: Observadora
