BoCA 2021

GRADA KILOMBA

Grada Kilomba's first large-scale installation travels to Margarida Xirgu Square, in front of Teatro Lliure, in Barcelona. Consisting of 140 burnt wood blocks, it invites the audience to enter a garden of memory, in which poems rest on burnt wood blocks, recalling forgotten stories and identities. What stories are told? Where are they counted? How are they counted? And told by whom? These are questions that arise when entering this installation.

GUS VAN SANT

Film director Gus Van Sant ventures into his first creation for the stage, a musical theater show inspired by Andy Warhol and his overwhelming talent for elevating images into icons, all while achieving worldwide celebrity status as persona and artist.

GUS VAN SANT

O realizador de cinema Gus Van Sant aventura-se na sua primeira criação de palco com uma equipa portuguesa, um espetáculo de teatro musical inspirado em Andy Warhol e no seu esmagador talento para elevar a ícone as imagens, ao mesmo tempo que escalava como persona e artista a um estatuto de celebridade mundial.

LASTESIS

The Chilean feminist and multidisciplinary collective LASTESIS arrives in Portugal for the first time to lead a performance and activism workshop, which will result in a public presentation. In the convergence between performance, design, fashion, history, music and, of course, political and social activism LASTESIS will conduct a 3 day creative laboratory with the participation of around 80 women and dissenters.

KHALIK ALLAH

Jamaican-Iranian filmmaker and photographer Khalik Allah, based in New York, runs a workshop for the first time in Lisbon, in which he discusses the spiritual implications of his work, namely the use of photography to capture the essence of a person from a non-judgmental perspective; the recognition of all people as a light, and as a child of God; the choice to find beauty everywhere and in everything around us; and the use of photography to build intimate relationships.

PAN DAIJING

Cited as one of the most uprising figures in the current avant-garde, Pan Daijing is for the first in Portugal with “Half a Name”, a site-specific music performance for the National Pantheon. Pan Daijing takes on the expansive sound and visual documentation of her large-scale performances. Deconstructing moments of memories, the piece explores the possibilities of the performative archive, as well as its practice in experimental narrative.

GABRIEL FERRANDINI

When releasing "Hair of the Dog", his first solo album, Gabriel Ferrandini brings to the Champalimaud Foundation's open-air amphitheater a performance that precisely reflects this state of openness to new artistic experiences: with the Gulbenkian Choir he explores the contemporaries possibilities of operatic singing, with the voices succeeding each other in successive loops (canon), raising issues of memory, traps and liberation.

ALICE RIPOLL

Brazilian choreographer Alice Ripoll proposes a theoretical-practical workshop: a first part, where she presents her way of directing and choreographing, sharing experiences and methodologies; and a second part, in which the dancers and creatives of Cia REC present practical exercises developed in creative and improvisation processes. A unique opportunity to get together with one of the most significant artists of contemporary dance.

VON CALHAU!

In the workshop "Tesourelha", the artists Marta Ângela and João Alves propose to form a listening group with the participants. During the two intensive days of the workshop, four listening sessions will take place, lasting 2h30 each. Each of the sessions will correspond to listening accompanied by a composition of sounds. No image. Each of the compositions will have as reference each of the four elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air.

DUNCAN EVENNOU e PATRICK LAFFONT-DELOJO

Based on the stage experiments that Frédérique Aït-Touati and Bruno Latour have been conducting together for the past ten years, the workshop proposes to explore these questions through different mediums (video, scenography, philosophy, architecture, cartography, drawing), and to share with the participants the different tools that the troupe has been exploring for several years in the form of scenic and graphic research - a gaïa-graphy.

SARAH DAVACHI

Sarah Davachi is one of the most recent phenomena in minimalist music. "Antiphonals", which Sarah Davachi will play on the organ of Santuário do Cristo Rei, in Almada, is as much concerned with the vertical experience of texture as it is with the elongation of intervallic progressions across the horizontal realm – an occurrence that we might typically refer to as ‘melody’, but which becomes obscured here in the continual undoing of its staying power. Unmissable listening.

ODETE

Odete wants to “destroy the performative display that transforms our bodies into commodities” and “lie about history so that we can remodel the future”. The project “On Revelations and Muddy Becomings” is the culmination of a work about shadows and politics, which Odete, a multidisciplinary artist that operates within the spheres of music, visual arts, performance and theatre, has been creating.

RODRIGO GARCÍA

The Argentinean iconoclast, playwright and theatre director Rodrigo García returns with an audiovisual creation, written and produced remotely during the lockdown period. Not theatre, but a green screen (chroma key) and five exceptional performers materialise the director’s overflowing imagination. Angélica Liddell, Denis Lavant, Florencia Vecino, François Chaignaud and Volmir Cordeiro give themselves, body and soul, to this experiment.

RODRIGO GARCÍA

The Argentinean iconoclast, playwright and theatre director Rodrigo García returns with an audiovisual creation, written and produced remotely during the lockdown period. Not theatre, but a green screen (chroma key) and five exceptional performers materialise the director’s overflowing imagination. Angélica Liddell, Denis Lavant, Florencia Vecino, François Chaignaud and Volmir Cordeiro give themselves, body and soul, to this experiment.

RODRIGO GARCÍA

The Argentinean iconoclast, playwright and theatre director Rodrigo García returns with an audiovisual creation, written and produced remotely during the lockdown period. Not theatre, but a green screen (chroma key) and five exceptional performers materialise the director’s overflowing imagination. Angélica Liddell, Denis Lavant, Florencia Vecino, François Chaignaud and Volmir Cordeiro give themselves, body and soul, to this experiment.

ANASTASIA SOSUNOVA

Through a process of distortion and the interlacing of elements from old mythologies, hybrid identities and a society of surveillance, Sosunova produces alternative forms of “contemporary folklore”, exploring new narratives and ways of life that require rules, ethics, codes and agreements between living beings.

SARA BICHÃO

A serie of performances in the natural space, “I want to see my mountains” is curated by Delfim Sardo and Sílvia Gomes and proposes artists to look at the legacy of Joseph Beuys, while observing their own mountains, their own "selves".

DAYANA LUCAS

A serie of performances in the natural space, “I want to see my mountains” is curated by Delfim Sardo and Sílvia Gomes and proposes artists to look at the legacy of Joseph Beuys, while observing their own mountains, their own "selves".

GUSTAVO CIRÍACO

A serie of performances in the natural space, “I want to see my mountains” is curated by Delfim Sardo and Sílvia Gomes and proposes artists to look at the legacy of Joseph Beuys, while observing their own mountains, their own "selves".

GUSTAVO SUMPTA

A serie of performances in the natural space, “I want to see my mountains” is curated by Delfim Sardo and Sílvia Gomes and proposes artists to look at the legacy of Joseph Beuys, while observing their own mountains, their own "selves".

MUSA PARADISIACA

A serie of performances in the natural space, “I want to see my mountains” is curated by Delfim Sardo and Sílvia Gomes and proposes artists to look at the legacy of Joseph Beuys, while observing their own mountains, their own "selves".

DIANA POLICARPO

A serie of performances in the natural space, “I want to see my mountains” is curated by Delfim Sardo and Sílvia Gomes and proposes artists to look at the legacy of Joseph Beuys, while observing their own mountains, their own "selves".

BERRU

A serie of performances in the natural space, “I want to see my mountains” is curated by Delfim Sardo and Sílvia Gomes and proposes artists to look at the legacy of Joseph Beuys, while observing their own mountains, their own "selves".

PLANTATION OF 7.000 TREES

Inspired by Joseph Beuys’s project “7000 Oaks” (1982), BoCA debuts a 10 year project, combining the plantation of new creations (both natural and artistic), curatorships, debates and conferences throughout different areas, forming a forest of thousands of artists and artworks. All artists and citizens are invited to plant a tree and name it.

ANDRÉ UERBA

Through deceleration, inhibition of the sense of sight and a kinetic and somatic approach to the body and its movement, André Uerba and the performers explore different ways to get to know and feel each other. Bodies that meet, coordinate and communicate non-verbally, opening a space that is understood as political.

FELIPE BRAGANÇA, TEATRO GRIOT, CATARINA WALLENSTEIN

Science fiction, tale and documentation are blended in this visual and theatrical performance about the memories of the Mueda Massacre, which happened in Mozambique in 1960.

LASTESIS

The artistic, interdisciplinary and feminist collective of women from Valparaíso (Chile) LASTESIS is dedicated to disseminating feminist theory based on performance. They travel to Portugal for the first time to work with 80 women and dissidents of different ages and backgrounds, in a performance that seeks to address the claim to the right to a life free from violence.

ALICE RIPOLL

In “Lavagem”, the most recent work by the Brazilian choreographer Alice Ripoll and Cia. REC, reality and fantasy merge in a delirium, like an apocalyptic dream. With the help of buckets, water and soap, the performance looks into ambivalent imagery around the act of washing, critically observing the unravelling of scenic and historical elements.

JOANA CASTRO E MAURÍCIA | NEVES

And yet we still move. Fragility as a capacity, as a poetic place, is the starting point of a performance that arises from the desire to shift the private to the public sphere. The choreographers and performers Joana Castro and Maurícia | Neves question and reconfigure the relationships between them, using as a base photographs from the personal archive of a romantic relationship that ended last October.

JOANA CASTRO E MAURÍCIA | NEVES

E ainda assim nos movemos. A fragilidade enquanto potência, enquanto lugar poético, é o ponto de partida para uma performance que surge da vontade de deslocar o campo privado para o público. As coreógrafas e intérpretes Joana Castro e Maurícia Neves questionam e reconfiguram a relações entre ambas, tendo como base fotografias de arquivo pessoal de uma relação amorosa que encontrou o seu fim em outubro passado.

PAPILLONS D'ÉTERNITÉ (TÂNIA CARVALHO AND MATTHIEU EHRLACHER)

The instruments played by Tânia and Matthieu, saxophone and erhu, and her collaboration with the Faro Folklore Group, enable the embrace of this new form of experimentation with tradition and songbook. The songs are dismembered from their original form to be placed in the construction of a sound journey.

TÂNIA CARVALHO AND MATTHIEU EHRLACHER

The instruments played by Tânia and Matthieu, saxophone and erhu, and her collaboration with the Casa do Minho de Lisboa Folklore Group, enable the embrace of this new form of experimentation with tradition and songbook. The songs are dismembered from their original form to be placed in the construction of a sound journey.

TIAGO CADETE

In “Brasa”, Tiago Cadete traces one of the lines of his theatrical research, that of the enquiry and critical approach to the historical relations between Portugal and Brazil, accompanied by a group of creatives-performers from diverse backgrounds: Isabél Zuaa, Julia Salem, Keli Freitas, Magnum Alexandre Soares, Ana Lobato, Dori Nigro, Gustavo Ciríaco and Raquel André.

TIAGO CADETE

In “Brasa”, Tiago Cadete traces one of the lines of his theatrical research, that of the enquiry and critical approach to the historical relations between Portugal and Brazil, accompanied by a group of creatives-performers from diverse backgrounds: Isabél Zuaa, Julia Salem, Keli Freitas, Magnum Alexandre Soares, Ana Lobato, Dori Nigro, Gustavo Ciríaco and Raquel André.

KHALIK ALLAH

“IWOW” brings to Portugal the memorable photographer and filmmaker from New York, Khalik Allah, already described as a director of “street opera” and praised for a disarming view that unveils, with delicate mastery, a viscerally beautiful humanity.

KHALIK ALLAH

“IWOW” brings to Portugal the memorable photographer and filmmaker from New York, Khalik Allah, already described as a director of “street opera” and praised for a disarming view that unveils, with delicate mastery, a viscerally beautiful humanity.

NOÉ SOULIER

“Passages” is a nomadic project that explores the relation between the movement of bodies and the spaces in which these inscribe their actions. In acting with imaginary objects, performers trigger resonances in multiple scales and dimensions, activating the physical memories of the audience, starting with the relationship to the spaces they inhabit.

LA FAMÍLIA GITANA & ANTÓNIO POPPE

“Música Cigana Camões Yanomami / A Soma dos Seus” consists of a performance/concert that combines the poetry of Camões, texts by Davi Kopenawa (from the Yanomami indigenous), with Gypsy Music. This encounter creates a communicative composition of original expressions.

CAPICUA

“A Tralha” is a quasi-monologue about hoarding. An essay about waste and obsoleteness, presented as a personal narrative. A reflection about the objects that surround us, that serve as a kind of extension of ourselves, containing our memories and functioning as an interface between us and the world.

GUS VAN SANT

Film director Gus Van Sant ventures into his first creation for the stage, a musical theater show inspired by Andy Warhol and his overwhelming talent for elevating images into icons, all while achieving worldwide celebrity status as persona and artist.

JONATHAN ULIEL SALDANHA

Jonathan Uliel Saldanha is a musician, visual artist, sound and stage creator. In “Atavic Machine” Jonathan operates for the first time in a vegetal space (of human construction) - the Lisbon Green House - the action of a sound and light machine, where the latent and fictitious characteristics from a remote and future time come together.

BRUNO LATOUR AND FRÉDÉRIQUE AÏT-TOUATI

A conference-performance by the philosopher Bruno Latour and sociologist and stage director Frédérique Aït-Touati, in which the social and cosmic order is described as “moving towards an unparalleled political and ecological collapse”, as a result of the climate crisis.

CARLOS AZEREDO MESQUITA

“Über Alles” is a durational performance in which the performers explore the history and the stories, iconographic and sociological elements in national anthems. Reflecting on the role that these songs have in the formation of the mythology of a nation and in the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion associated to this process.

MILES GREENBERG

“Water in a Heatwave” is a new durational piece for eight performers and is the artist’s most challenging project so far, in terms of scale and duration. In pairs, the performers clash their bodies into each other atop a series of pedestals, creating numerous tensions within the space.

LA FAMÍLIA GITANA & ANTÓNIO POPPE

“Música Cigana Camões Yanomami/A Soma dos Seus” consists of a performance/concert that combines the poetry of Camões, texts by Davi Kopenawa (from the Yanomami indigenous), with Gypsy Music. This encounter creates a communicative composition of original expressions.

CAPICUA

“A Tralha” is a quasi-monologue about hoarding. An essay about waste and obsoleteness, presented as a personal narrative. A reflection about the objects that surround us, that serve as a kind of extension of ourselves, containing our memories and functioning as an interface between us and the world.

ANNE IMHOF

“Untitled (Wave)” creates resonance between questions around ideas of the feminine, worship and immateriality. It refers also to the history of art and aesthetic discourse, particularly to the concept of the sublime associated with the romantic period of contemplation of nature, of bleak and desolate landscapes conveying the smallness of the scale of the individual before the grandeur of the universe.

LUÍS LÁZARO MATOS

“Une vague joyeuse” is a project by Luís Lázaro Matos with a title that recalls the last scene of the film “Testament of Orpheus” (1960) by Jean Cocteau, in which a convertible car drives down a winding road while the passengers scream in joy, indifferent to the two policemen parked by the curb.

GRADA KILOMBA

“O Barco/The Boat” is an installation by the artist Grada Kilomba, comprised of 140 blocks forming the shape of the bottom of a ship, a detailed drawing of the space that was created to accommodate the bodies of millions of Africans enslaved by European empires. Extended along 32 meters of the river, it invites the audience to enter a garden of memories, where poems rest over blocks of burnt wood. Three performance acts are expected during the biennial.

AGNIESZKA POLSKA

“The New Sun” brings the Polish artist Agnieszka Polska to Portugal for the first time. A projection of the sun personified as a cartoon character that speaks directly to the audience about scientific theory, poetry, natural disasters, trivial jokes and love songs. Here, the sun is everything you see before the final collapse of your system, your planet, your sunset - the last witness to your extinction, softly driving you towards the black hole of a last meditation.

AGNIESZKA POLSKA

In “I Am the Mouth”, a pair of lips partially submerged in turbulent waters floats while repeating soothing words, artistically reframing the viral Internet phenomenon of ASMR videos (Auto Sensory Meridian Response) - where sounds generated by trivial materials scratching against the microphone or whispering voices are amplified to stimulate pleasant tingling sensations on the nape.

MÓNICA CALLE

In “Between Heaven and Earth", theatre director Mónica Calle picks as a starting point the writings of Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão and, under a BoCA's invitation, develops a new work for a natural setting: among the beach and dunes of the naturist beach of Costa da Caparica. An intimate and challenging experience for only nine spectators at a time.

ROMEO CASTELLUCCI

“The Third Reich” is a performative video-installation based on the spectral representation of all names. All the nouns found in the Italian dictionary (here translated to Portuguese) are projected, in sequence, one by one. This furious bunch of words, with a powerful sound, does not allow space for choice or judgement. The core of language returns to white noise that leads to chaos. 

ANDREIA SANTANA

The way in which we relate or mutually affect each other, in permanent interdependence, is a principle that is found across much of the work by the visual artist Andreia Santana. “Overlapses, Riddles & Spells” is a project that contemplates a unique installation with pieces made of glass and iron, along with two video projections.

NOÉ SOULIER

“Passages” is a nomadic project that explores the relation between the movement of bodies and the spaces in which these inscribe their actions. In acting with imaginary objects, performers trigger resonances in multiple scales and dimensions, activating the physical memories of the audience, starting with the relationship to the spaces they inhabit.

PEDRO COSTA & OS MÚSICOS DO TEJO

From the acclaimed director Pedro Costa and following his award-winning film “Vitalina Varela”, the premiere of “As Filhas do Fogo” (Daughters of Fire'), a show that merges cinema, music and theatre. Pedro Costa collaborates with Os Músicos do Tejo and proposes a stage format that once again places the emphasis on postcolonialism. 

ODETE

Odete wants to “destroy the performative display that transforms our bodies into commodities” and “lie about history so that we can remodel the future”. The project “On Revelations and Muddy Becomings” is the culmination of a work about shadows and politics, which Odete, a multidisciplinary artist that operates within the spheres of music, visual arts, performance and theatre, has been creating.

GUS VAN SANT

Film director Gus Van Sant ventures into his first creation for the stage, a musical theater show inspired by Andy Warhol and his overwhelming talent for elevating images into icons, all while achieving worldwide celebrity status as persona and artist.

HORÁCIO FRUTUOSO

“In the light direction" is a site-specific intervention by artist Horácio Frutuoso for the foyer of Teatro Camões (CNB), promoted by BoCA. A set of visual poems suggest an idea of movement, of transforming words and the space where they are installed by light.

1 to 31 July 2021

ECOTEMPORÂNEOS

Ecotemporaries is a project that links literature with the green spaces of the city of Lisbon. Open, inclusive and accessible, in each session a new guest chooses a book and connects it to the green space where the public gathers. It has the presence of a sign language interpreter.

Guest: Mamadou Ba (activist, SOS Racism leader)
Chosen book: "Erosão” by Gisela Casimiro
Green space: Jardim do Museu de Lisboa (online)

ECOTEMPORÂNEOS

Ecotemporaries is a project that links literature with the green spaces of the city of Lisbon. Open, inclusive and accessible, in each session a new guest chooses a book and connects it to the green space where the public gathers. It has the presence of a sign language interpreter and the free distribution of the books printed in braille.

Guest: Beatriz Batarda (actress)
Chosen book: "Caderno de Memórias Coloniais", Isabela Figueiredo
Green space: Jardim do Museu de Lisboa