Archiving Performance

Archiving Performance explores, on one hand, the modes by which performances archive and are archived and, on the other hand, the modes by which archives perform and are performed. The three-day seminar will focus on the Portuguese artistic landscape, gathering several artists who will share their creative processes or (re-)perform works that relate to the topic. The seminar will bring together practical an theoretical perspectives, discussing artistic works alongside readings from authors such as Philip Auslander, Peggy Phelan, Rebecca Schneider, André Lepecki, Eleonora Fabião, Shannon Jackson, Gabriele Brandstetter, Paula Caspão and Metchild Widrich, among others.

This is a CECC event organized by Lisbon Consortium´s PhD candidates and CECC researchers Ana Dinger & Sophie Pinto, having Alkantara as host and partner.

Know more about the event

“Histórias de um Amor” by Sofia Dinger

1 June, 6 p.m.

“You’ve just turned 82. You’re still beautiful, graceful and desirable. We’ve lived together now for 58 years and l love you more than ever. Lately I’ve fallen in love with you all over again and I once more feel a gnawing emptiness inside that can only be filled when your body is pressed against mine. At night I sometimes see the figure of a man, on an empty road along in a deserted landscape, walking behind a hearse. I am that man. It’s you the hearse is taking away. I don’t want to be there for your cremation; I don’t want to be given an urn with your ashes in it. I hear the voice of Kathleen Ferrier singing, ‘Die Welt ist leer, Ich will nicht leben mehr’* and I wake up. I check your breathing, my hand brushes over you. Neither of us wants to outlive the other. We’ve often said to ourselves that if, by some miracle, we were to have a second life, we would like to spend it together.”*

Thus ended André Gorz’s letter to D. I read it by a green current river, multiplying fish and a hot breeze running between the toes. I enter the river, the fish sting. Loads of borrowed images and nontransferable narratives come to me. A small bird almost breaks the branch of a tree. And some synchronized airplanes. Your death and mine come to me. It comes to me what it will be like to see us from outside, today the water is clearer and the bottom nearer what may help something to shine. I check my breathing. There is no other hand nor there is a flower. I think of myself ‘many years from now’: how will I know, then, to speak of this afternoon, of this river? What will survive from this letter in me? How never to lose this hot breeze – the hairpin gets loose – just this life? How to finish turning eighty-two years? What about the silhouettes of men? And what about your death? What about your death? I remember one other sentence from the letter I have just read: “To you, alias Kay, who, in giving me You, have given me I.”** I am not sure I understand it. But I find it so beautiful. And I want to know it by heart so I never forget it. I will repeat it until the sun goes down. And then it comes to me the tender face of a great friend saying, “All is broken, but a heart is revealed.” And I will never be given an urn with your ashes in it.”

Sofia Dinger

* The world is empty. I don’t want to go on living.
** André Gorz’s Letter to D translated to English by Julie Rose

Credits

Concept and Performance Sofia Dinger
Lights Daniel Worm
Thanks Ana Dinger, António Moreira Duarte, Clara Dinger, João Ferro Martins, Gonçalo Alegria, Luísa Crick, Tiago Oliveira

Artist bio

Sofia Dinger holds a degree in Theatre by ESCT (Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema) and a master’s degree in Theatre (Das Arts Theatre programme, Amsterdam University of the Arts). Sofia Dinger authored and is the solo performer of Uma canção para ouvir-te chegar (Teatro Municipal Maria Matos, Alkantara Festival, 2018), Histórias de um amor (TRAÇA, 2017) Grande Ilusão (Temps d’Images, 2014) and Nothing’s ever yours to keep (Teatro Municipal Maria Matos, 2011). She has performed with Mónica Calle, Blitz Theatre Group, Sara Carinhas, Rui Catalão, Tiago Vieira, Teatro do Vestido and Francisco Salgado (theater) and for Leonardo Mouramateus, André Lage, Paulo Menezes and Pedro Filipe Marques (cinema). In 2013, she joined the project Try Angle and, in 2015, 1Space, carried out in Portugal, Congo, Palestine and South Africa (meeting Faustin Linyekula, Jozef Wouters and Tony Chakar). So many people. So many places. Among people and places – she finds herself always in transit.

Conversation following the performance with the artist(s) and guest Paula Caspão

Archiving performance, performing the archive with Vânia Rovisco

2 june, 2 p.m.

For this session, we invited Vânia Rovisco to share with us the starting point(s), (in)decisions, lines of flight and further questions that emerged from the processes of (re)collection, digestion, transmission and presentation that comprise the focus of the project REACTING TO TIME. REACTING TO TIME – Portuguese in Performance (2014) probes into performance art’s experimentalism in the aftermath of the Revolution (25 April 1974) – the 70s and 80s of the 20th century – in an attempt to “build a living archive embodied in the present”. REACTING TO TIME investigates the archive as (a) body (of knowledge and of information) and the body as archive (the archive as living and sentient). By producing actualizations of performance artworks dating back to the 70s and 80s, REACTING TO TIME brings light and gives continuity to a lineage that has been, until recently, neglected. Through chains of transmission, these works – or the metonymical transmission of them – are embodied by more and more bodies that become their multiple and transformative repositories (and, concurrently, potential transmitters – as in “person or thing that transmits”).

MB#4OFF by Miguel Bonneville

2 june, 6 p.m.

MB # 4 OFF results from the acknowledgment that it would not make sense to present again the performance “Miguel Bonneville # 4” after its debut. Having two more presentations scheduled (at the end of 2007), I decided to present it with another format, close to a lecture. It made more sense to talk about the process than to repeat it. The record of the performance is projected into the wall behind me, while, in a confessional mode, I share the stories that led me to create MB#4 and not wanting to present it again.

Credits

Director and Performer Miguel Bonneville
Original Soundtrack BlackBambi
Assistance, Photography and Video Sofia Arriscado
Co-Production Companhia de Dança de Évora and Campo Maior City Council

Artist Bio

Miguel Bonneville introduces us to autobiographical works focused on the deconstruction and reconstruction of identity. He presents his work in a variety of formats, such as performances, drawings, photographs, films, music or artist’s books. His work is presented in art galleries, theatres and international festivals, namely the projects Family Project, Miguel Bonneville, and The Importance of Being. Bonneville was part of the artistic nucleus of the contemporary dance production company Eira (2004-2006) and contemporary art gallery Galeria 3+1 Arte Contemporânea (2009-2013). In 2015 he won the Ex Aequo Award for the performances Medo e Feminismos (in collaboration with Maria Gil), and The Importance of Being Simone de Beauvoir. Bonneville has participated in artistic residencies such as Sítio das Artes/Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon, 2007), Homesession, (Barcelona, 2008), Mugatxoan/Serralves Foundation (Porto, 2010), Transeuropa2012 (Hildesheim, 2012), Arts Printing House (Vilnius, 2013), Arte y Desarrollo (Madrid, 2014) and La Box (Bourges, 2018).

Conversation following the performance with the artist(s) and guest Paula Caspão