13 Shots -live performance- (2018)

Walk-in Performance in collaboration with Grupo de Teatro do Oprimido de Lisboa, at the Sala Polivalente, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon.

Within the context of Aimée Zito Lema’s exhibition 13 Shots, the artist presents a performance in collaboration with Grupo de Teatro do Oprimido de Lisboa (GTO) at the Multipurpose Room (Sala Polivalente), right next to the Project Space. The performance is in close dialogue with the exhibition, which displays a body of works in video, sculpture, photography and silkscreen that result from a prior collaboration with the theatre group.

In this performance the GTO group engages in a series of exercises that explore the relation between images, bodies, memory and space through the use of re-photographed archival material from the ACARTE Archive, researched and selected by the artist. Through the use and transformation of this archival material they propose different readings of the past performative events that took place at the Multipurpose Room.

In engaging physically and narratively with the photographic archive, the participants position themselves within the history of this theatre space, articulating new narratives and possible ways of interpreting and appropriating the history of Estado Novo and the Carnation Revolution. Speaking to a broader context of historical narratives and memory disputes in Portugal, the participants reclaim for themselves a space for voicing unheard stories that fill in the gaps of hegemonic history.

The Theatre of the Oppressed Group of Lisbon is an NGO engaged in stimulating the active participation of citizens in the construction of society through a theatrical practice informed by Augusto Boal’s methodology. The group works directly with disadvantaged populations towards their empowerment, forming groups that create plays based on their individual and social experiences. The group involved in this performance is composed of adolescents from Alcoitão.

Credits

Curators: Ana Cristina Cachola, Daniela Agostinho, Luísa Santos


Production assistance (UCP): Ana Fabíola Maurício

Performers: Grupo de Teatro do Oprimido de Lisboa: Beatriz Pereira Teixeira, Bruna Diana Vaz Fortes, Edgar Veiga Gomes, Germen Quinalau, Gesica Quinalau, Inês Veiga Pereira, Jessica Nascimento Gomes Varela, Liliana Nascimento Santos, Rosa Maria Lopes

See also: exhibition 13 Shots