TEMPS D'IMAGES

Paula Diogo imagined the cycle ABOUT REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING to talk about how memory operates in our lives. Following PAISAGEM (Landscape) which was presented in March 2021 at the Teatro Municipal do Porto, A ESTAÇÃO DE OUTONO (The Autumn Station) is presented. This creation brings together Alexander Kelly (Third Angel), Chris Thorpe (Unlimited Theatre), Cláudia Gaiolas (TMV) and Paula Diogo in the third moment that ends this cycle which started in 2018 with a show with the same name presented at Teatro Maria Matos. Three shows to talk about what we choose to remember or forget, or what we can remember and forget.

The Autumn Station (A Estação de Outono) is a piece for two voices.

Two strangers meet regularly in non-places and reconstruct the steps that lead to someone’s disappearance. As memory aids they have only a collection of photos taken in abandoned spaces, which lost their functionality and were taken over by nature. The creation projects a fantasy where the actors have no body and the relationship with the spectators is essentially made through sound.

The show will be first presented at CCB – Black Box (Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon) within the programme of Temps d’Images Festival, in October 2021, and will continue to be developed throughout 2022.

Paula Diogo

Performer and stage director with an artistic background based on collaborative processes. She has been meandering through art-making and producing in recent years. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Training of Actors / Directors by the ESTC in Lisbon, and a Master’s Degree in Performing Arts by the LHÍ (Icelandic Academy of Arts), with grants from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the GDA Foundation. She was co-founder of several collectives, such as Teatro Praga (1995-08), TRUTA (2003-10) and O Pato Profissional Lda (2003-10).

She has worked with several artists and companies both in Portugal and abroad.

More recently, she has been consolidating Má-Criação(www.ma-criacao.com), a platform that brings together creators from different backgrounds and geographies. She is one of the artists supported by  APAP – FEMINIST FUTURES, a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union. (www.apapnet.eu)  and a member of the collective Celestial Bodies, a new project dedicated to opening up spaces that integrate practices of solidarity, care, empathy and awe. She lives in Lisbon.

Cláudia Gaiolas

Cláudia Gaiolas is a creator, performer and associated artist of teatro meia volta e depois à esquerda quando eu disser.

She has been working with diverse companies: Mundo Perfeito, mala voadora, Truta, Má-Criação, Teatro da Garagem, Homem Bala, and also Tiago Rodrigues, Tónan Quito, Paula Diogo, Giacomo Scalisi, António Mercado, André Murraças, Joaquim Horta, Madalena Victorino, Jean-Pierre Larroche, Rui Horta, Clara Andermatt, Martim Pedroso, Àgnes Limbos, Dinarte Branco, Guilherme Garrido, Alfredo Martins, Alex Cassal, Keli Freitas and Raquel André.

She staged the shows As of Tomorrow (A Partir de Amanhã) and The Woman that Stopped (A Mulher que Parou), with texts of Tiago Rodrigues for Alkantara; for the Materiais Diversos festival, she staged: The Terrorists (Os Terroristas) and created the shows Domestic Soil (Solo Doméstico) and It’s Not Just Me Here (Não Sou Só Eu Aqui), this last one with Rita Rio. She participated in the TRYANGLE laboratory and developed the TryRomance project. She participates in the show I DON’T BELONG HERE, with direction of Dinarte Branco. She co-creates The Great Book of Small Details (O Grande Livro dos Pequenos Detalhes). For São Luiz Municipal Theatre, she directed the Antiprincesses’ (Antiprincesas) cycle; with Anabela Almeida and Sílvia Filipe co-directed the show The Three Lonely (As Três Sozinhas) for D. Maria II National Theatre.

Alexander Kelly

Alexander Kelly is Co-Artistic Director of the Sheffield-based theatre company Third Angel, with whom he devises, directs, writes, designs and performs.  The company makes a range of work connecting the territories of theatre, live art, installation, film, video, photography and digital & online media, which tours throughout Britain, mainland Europe and beyond. Current projects and recent include the shows The Department of Distractions (with Northern Stage), 600 People, Partus, The Paradise Project (with mala voadora), The Life & Loves of a Nobody (with Sheffield Theatres), Cape Wrath, The Machine (from the radio play by Georges Perec) and What I Heard About the World (a co-production with mala voadora, Sheffield Theatres and Teatro Maria Matos) and the durational performances The Journeys (with SBC Theatre), The Desire Paths, Story Map (with mala voadora) and Inspiration Exchange. Other recent work includes writing O Grande Livro dos Pequeno Detalhes (The Great Book of Tiny Details) with/for Má Criação (Rio de Janeiro 2015, Lisbon & Porto 2016), writing and performing Playing Detective for Slung Low’s 15 Minutes Live (Leeds 2013), and co-devising Learning To Swim with Má Criação (Lisbon 2010).

Alex is an experienced educator, and is Senior Lecturer in Performance Practice at Leeds Beckett University. He has taught at numerous Universities across the UK, and has also taught for Third Angel at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. Alex regularly mentors other artists and companies with Third Angel and through his role at Leeds Beckett.

Chris Thorpe

Chris Thorpe is an Associate Artist at the Royal Exchange, Manchester – work for them includes There Has Possibly Been An Incident and The Mysteries. Other theatre work includes Victory Condition and The Milk of Human Kindness for the Royal Court, Chorus for the Gate Theatre and Hannah, Beowulf and one of Aesop’s Fables for the Unicorn. He also has ongoing collaborations with Rachel Chavkin produced by China Plate (Confirmation/Status), Lucy Ellinson (TORYCORE), Portugal’s mala voadora (Overdrama/House-Garden/Dead End/Your Best Guess) and Hannah Jane Walker (The Oh Fuck Moment/I Wish I Was Lonely) Chris was a founder member of Unlimited Theatre, is an Associate of Live Art/Theatre company Third Angel and has worked frequently with Forest Fringe. Chris has also recently collaborated with Rachel Bagshaw, writing the award-winning The Shape of the Pain. His short film for the Royal Court and the Financial Times about the climate crisis, What Do You Want Me To Say? was released in September 2019.

Chris’s performance work tours internationally, and is also regularly produced for stage and radio throughout Europe and in the US. He won several awards including Fringe Firsts for Static and Neutrino (both with Unlimited Theatre), Confirmation, Status, The Oh Fuck Moment, and The Shape of the Pain, selection for Berlin Theatertreffen’s Stuckemarkt for There Has Possibly Been an Incident, and the Arches Brick Award for TORYCORE. His work is published by Oberon Books.