Joana Levi

Beginning with a reflection on bird migration, extinction, and conservation, Rasante is a performance that unfolds like a meditative fable or a fable-like meditation. It brings interspecies’ perspectives and conflicts into play. In this game, the hierarchical dividing lines between “Human” and “Animal” replicate the forces of colonial, racialist or racial and supremacist relations that continue to obstruct and terrorise the present of the future.

This project was developed, in part, during a residency in Alentejo (Ourique), as part of the Terra Batida project. Terra Batida is a constellation of people, practices and knowledge taking a stand against ecological violence and politics of abandonment. Local knowledge of socio-environmental conflicts combined with an active network create a context for resistance to extractive abuses and, also, for practices of care — speculation, fabulation, and building visions and reflections of the future for our weary, worn-out worlds. All Terra Batida events at the Alkantara Festival are free to attend.

By and with Joana Levi Translated by Joana Frazão

Rasante is presented in a double bill with Superintensiva by Marta Lança

Joana Levi is a Brazilian performer, theatre director, and dramaturge. She has lived in Lisbon since 2017. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Philosophy and Aesthetics. Over the last 10 years, she has developed experimental and collaborative works that are influenced by different artistic languages (live art, theatre, dance, philosophy) and evoke centre/periphery-type tensions that are expressed in urban, (post)colonial and gender contexts and conflicts. In recent years, she has worked with Carlota Lagido (PT), Sónia Baptista (PT), Rita Natálio (PT), João dos Santos Martins (PT), Gustavo Ciríaco (PT-BR), and Julia Salem (BR-PT), among others. Highlights of work produced in Brazil include: Museu Encantador in collaboration with Rita Natálio; Rózà (Zé Renato Theatre Award) in collaboration with Martha Kiss; and In_Trânsito, with Isabel Penoni/Companhia Marginal.