PRIVATE COLLECTION

17 OUT  18H00  A LESTE Gallery  240'
Ongoing performance

...AO QUE ISTO CHEGOU

XANA NOVAIS

Take justice into one's own hands, say tarot cards or power-hungry humans. Doing justice can be an act of revenge or an act of courage. This is an ephemeral act... What has brought us to this point is doing justice for one's own body against the commodification of art. A happening that finances itself, pays the rent, has a voice, and combines both planning and improvisation. Xana is a prostitute of art; many say she sells her body as a manifestation of the precarious times that art is going through, has gone through, and will go through. Yes, it's a feminist act. A human or humanitarian act. Xana Novais seeks in her work an intersection between the public and the private, sharing her intimacy on stage as an artistic act. She transforms political acts into literal marks on her body, using fetish, gore, and voyeurism as activist acts.
NOTE: There will be a menu at the entrance and the public can take part in the performance at the artist's availability. It is suggested that audience members bring their own towel.

CONCEPT, DIRECTION, SET DESIGN, CHOREOGRAPHY, LIGHT AND SOUND XANA NOVAIS
PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO RITA SOEIRO 
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER TATIANA ROCHA
SPONSORS CASA FELISBERTO MÁRMORES, BRB PICHELARIA AND CARPINTARIAS LAVANDEIRA 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ANGELA CARDOSO, VALTER GOMES, REBECA LETRAS, JRCP ARQUITECTOS LIMITADA, FER FER FER, RITA SOEIRO, DIOGO BESSA, RMF LDA
THIS PIECE REVOLVES AROUND THE CONCEPT OF A PERFORMATIVE MANIFESTATION CARRIED OUT BY A SINGLE ARTIST

>18

BIOGRAPHY

XANA NOVAIS, born in Porto in 1995, is an actress, dancer, and performer. She graduated in theater at Balleteatro Escola Profissional in 2013 and completed the FAICC dance course at Companhia Instável. She stands out as an interpreter in various shows, including o Nome da Rosa by Pedro Zegre Penim (Teatro Municipal do Porto/Teatro Praga, 2015), O céu é apenas um disfarce azul do Inferno by Hugo Calhim Cristovão and Joana Von Mayer Trindade (Complicidades Festival, 2015), Despertar da Primavera by Teatro Praga (Teatro Praga/CCVF/Teatro Viriato/TNSJ, 2016), Palhaço rico Fode Palhaço Pobre by João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira (Bienal Boca/TMP/São Luiz Teatro Municipal, 2017), M18 by Da Estrutura (Teatro Municipal do Porto / Casa da cultura de Ílhavo), Jungle Red by Carlota Canto Lagido (Festival DDD/2018), Apollon by Florentina Holzinger (Campo, 2017), A Divine Comedy (something great, 2021), and Ofelia's Got Talent by Florentina Holzinger (volksbunhe, 2022). In 2019, she starred as Dolores in the series DOLORES by Tota Alves (RTPlay) and performed the works "CUT PIECE" and "BAG PIECE" in Instruction Pieces by Yoko Ono (Serralves, 2020). As a creator, she developed the shows (VS) POPCORN, Un Teknè, and (G) Dysphoria APP. In 2022, she created Como Matar Mulheres Nuas (March 2022, TMP, International Performing Arts platform, 2023). In 2023, she premiered the play ELECTRA VAI AO TECHNO (Barreiro, 2023). Xana Novais has been developing her works, which involve a collection of mental and physical tests that she proposes to herself, constantly navigating between fiction and reality, with extremely autobiographical details.

17 OCT  18H30  MUSEU NACIONAL SOARES DOS REIS  15’

NÁCAR

BRUNO SENUNE

Nácar is a performative proposal that reflects on oblivion, the fiction of memories. The name nácar comes from the Arabic word "naqqára," which means drum. Nacre is a hard, iridescent substance rich in limestone, produced by certain mollusks. It coats the inside of various shells and is also released as a reaction to a foreign body that enters the epithelial membrane. This foreign body causes irritation to the animal, leading it to release an isolated secretion for calcification, similar to the inner part of the shell, forming a pearl whose size varies based on the time of resistance to the foreign body and the climatic conditions of the environment. Mother of Pearl is also the substance that represents the thirty-one years of a marriage.
For some time now, I have been reflecting on the fact that I have practically no archives (photographs, videos, drawings) of my childhood. Apart from the physical materials, the stories passed down to me by the people I grew up with are rare and disconnected. This absence of archive has formed in my memory a distant, inventive, and assumption-laden period. Memory is a place of energy, storage, and evocation, often indefinite and constructed through the relationship of real images with desires, conflicts, and projections.
This project is born from the need to celebrate a space and what it represents, to celebrate the irony of what is vague and yet so certain and dazzling. Through the construction and deconstruction of this real and fictional archive, the vigor of places of fragility is enhanced.

CREATION AND INTERPRETATION: BRUNO SENUNE
CO-PRODUTION: FAMILY FILM PROJECT  
Thanks to Fátima São Simão, Francisca Lopes, Israel Pimenta (galeria Pedra no Rim), Régis Badel
 

BIOGRAPHY
Bruno Senune (born 1992) is a native of Aveiro, Portugal. He began his studies in dance at the Balleteatro Escola Profissional (2008-2011). He has collaborated as an interpreter with several artists, including Tânia Carvalho, Né Barros, Boris Charmatz, Vera Mantero, Flávio Rodrigues, Miguel Bonneville, Francisco Camacho, Carlota Lagido, Joclécio Azevedo, Mariana Tengner Barros, Victor Hugo Pontes, Joana von Mayer Trindade, Margarida Paiva, Mariana Amorim, and Marco da Silva Ferreira.
In 2020, he participated as a performer in the reactivation of Yoko Ono's Instruction Pieces, which were part of the exhibition Yoko Ono: The Learning Garden of Freedom, at Serralves. Since 2015, he has created his own authorial projects and presented them in various contexts: Lonely (2015) in collaboration with Flávio Rodrigues; Malheureux que je Suis (video installation - 2016); Kid As King (2016); a Deriva dos Olhos (2017); prenúncio de uma profunda melancolia (2019); and Vanishing (2024) in collaboration with Beatriz Valentim. He has presented his projects in Portugal, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Mexico. In 2016, he received a fellowship from the National Center of Culture. He also develops training projects at Balleteatro Escola Profissional and has been modeling in human figure classes since 2010. Since 2020, he has been involved in practices related to agriculture.
 

17 OCT  18H45  Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis  25’

A tale for the rootless

TERESA NORONHA FEIO 

A Tale for the Rootless is a choreographic solo developed and danced by Teresa Noronha Feio. The work is part of an investigation that allows the artist to reconstruct and embody a memory that she does not want to be forgotten. It is born from a desire to belong and be part of something, and for this, it was fundamental to understand in the body aspects of its cultural heritage, including historical, linguistic, and landscape heritage. A Tale for the Rootless is intended to be a mixed-race work and explores how inherited memories are stratified. It does not aim to represent a truth or be a historical documentation, but rather to investigate the meaning of memory, to recognize and appropriate the rhizomatous identity of its own body as an immense container of lived and inherited history.

CREATION AND INTERPRETATION: TERESA NORONHA FEIO

BIOGRAPHY
Performer and choreographer, Teresa graduated in the Netherlands in 2010. She collaborates with several choreographers, among whom Vânia Gala, Einat Tuchman, and Ornella D'agostino stand out for the impact they had on the maturation and construction of her artistic practice. As an author, Teresa is a co-creator of "Lionel, a bull in a china shop" (2016), and she developed "Imma, in memoria di Aisha Kandisha" (2018), thanks to the National Dance Foundation - Aterballetto in the Brussels-Marrakesh residency project. She also worked on "Until my heart stops" (2020) at the request of Casa da Dança Lavanderia a Vapore in 2020, making its debut. Her work focuses on the various forms and languages that memory contains. In her practice, the body is central and is assumed as an organism in constant transformation and becoming. Teresa investigates the idea of a tattooed body, understood as a container marked by aesthetic, historical, and social constructions. Teresa is a co-founder of the Fabbrica C collective, with which she directs shows, interprets, and accompanies training projects in several professional schools.
 

17 OCT  19H15  Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis  15’

Roer 

Vera Mota

Roer proposes a reflection on the binary that distinguishes organic from inorganic matter and challenges the subjective distinction between biological and geological bodies. Within this distinction, there are language codes that attribute qualities of possession, property, and value to matter, rendering it inert, detached from social and ecological relations, and devoid of agency. However, matter itself can mold and shape its form, and the form is determined by the intrinsic qualities of that matter, allowing it to express itself purposefully, thus reversing the previous order.
Through claiming alternative perspectives on body and materialities, this project aims to stage processes of transfiguration, declassifying functions and facilitating transfers between organic and inorganic, geological and biological bodies. The intention is to suggest an entanglement that dissolves any kind of hierarchy, exploring the interconnectedness and fluidity of these distinctions.

CREATION AND INTERPRETATION: VERA MOTA
YEAR: 2023
PHOTOGRAPHY: PEDRO TROPA

BIOGRAFIA
Vera Mota (born in 1982) lives and works in Porto. She holds a degree in Fine Arts – Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto (2000-2005) and a master's degree in contemporary artistic practices from the same institution (2006-2008). Additionally, she completed the course of research and choreographic creation at Fórum Dança, Lisbon (2005-2006).
Her work has been regularly presented to the public since 2003, and she has held notable solo exhibitions, including "Haze" at Appleton Square, Lisbon, 2023; SEM CORPO/DISEMBODIED at the Museu e Arte Contemporânea de Serralves; "From within the midst of things" at L21 Gallery, Palma (ES), 2022; "ventriloquism" at Galeria Bruno Múrias, Lisbon, 2021; and Levar a cabeça aos pés at Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, 2018. Additionally, her performance Curva Contínua was presented at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto; Head, EVA international Ireland's Biennial, Limerick (IE), 2018; and What is the color when black is burned? at SESC Belenzinho, São Paulo, (BR), 2014.
Her work is part of the contemporary art collection of the Portuguese state and other notable collections, such as António Cachola - MACE collection, Elvas; Ilídio Pinho collection, Porto; Oliva Art Center-Norlinda and José Lima collection, São João da Madeira; Plmj collection, Lisbon; and Maria and Armando Cabral collection.