Marlene Monteiro Freitas in residency at Espaço Alkantara
- 25.02 — 01.03 2025
- Espaço Alkantara
NÔT (based on One Thousand and One Night
On one side, a wall of people; on the other, a wall of stones. Like being caught "between a rock and a hard place," a stage emerges. In this enchanted valley, a miniature performance is crafted to fit vast spaces. It takes the shape of a fable, the result of an accumulation of various tales—some of love, others of war, some of journeys, others of beasts. These are weapon-tales that ensure the narrator’s survival, a duel between imagination and a petrified heart. They are lament-tales that honour the absent, a duel between life and death, captivity and freedom, vice and virtue, reality and desire.
In this architecture of stone upon stone and person upon person, an imaginary mirror appears—an artefact of multiplication, projection, alienation, and enchantment. Night after night, it transforms the stage into an onion. Layer by layer, wrapped in scents and invisible splashes, the "storytelling mouth" offers itself to both sword and wall, adding one more tale to the infinity of tales.
— Marlene Monteiro Freitas
Marlene Monteiro Freitas will be the Cour D'Honneur of the 79th edition of the Festival d'Avignon. The premiere is scheduled for 5 July 2025.
Credits
Choreography Marlene Monteiro Freitas Choreography assistant Francisco Rolo With Ben Green, Henri ‘Cookie’ Lesguillier, Joãozinho da Costa, Mariana Tembe, Marie Albert, Miguel Filipe, Rui Paixão, Tomás Moital Set design Yannick Fouassier and MMF Lighting Yannick Fouassier Sound Rui Antunes Administration, production P.OR.K Distribution Key Performance Co-production Festival D'Avignon; Berliner Festspiele and Tanz im August (Berlin, DE); International Summer Festival Kampnägel (Hamburg, DE); Culturgest (Lisbon, PT); MC2: Maison de la Culture de Grenoble - Scène nationale (Grenoble, FR); The Quartz - Brest National Scene (Brest, FR); La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand scène nationale (Clermont-Ferrand, FR); Maison de la danse, Lyon - Pôle européen de creation (Lyon, FR); Parc de la Villette (Paris, FR); Teatro Municipal do Porto (Porto, PT); Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels, BE); PACT Zolverrein (Essen, DE); Comédie de Genève (Geneva, CH); La Bâtie de Genève (Geneva, CH) Residencies O Espaço do Tempo; Alkantara; Estúdios Vítor Cordon With the support of Dançando com a Diferença
Marlene Monteiro Freitas is an Onassis Air 2025 scholarship holder
Marlene Monteiro Freitas (Cabo Verde, 1979) studied dance at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels and at Escola Superior de Dança and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon. In her native country, Cabo Verde, she co-founded the dance group Compass and collaborated with the musician Vasco Martins. She has worked with Emmanuelle Huynh, Loïc Touzé, Tânia Carvalho and Boris Charmatz, among others. Her productions include: Bacantes – Prelude To A Purge (2017), Jaguar (2015), with Andreas Merk, Of Ivory And Flesh - Statues Also Suffer (2014), Paradise – private collection...