O Passadiço, criado este ano para o jardim da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, tem como proposta artística a sobreposição de planos independentes que, quando percebidos a uma certa distância, provocam o olhar e a perceção do espetador.
MARCELO JÁCOME (Brasil, 1980) vive e trabalha no Rio de Janeiro, onde é arquiteto e urbanista. Em 2009, ingressou na EAV-Escola de Artes Visuais, do Parque Lage, onde é orientado por Iole de Freitas. Desenvolvendo a sua linguagem através da colagem e instalações, nas quais o papel é a principal matéria de trabalho, recorre às relações da reta e da curva, bidimensional e tridimensional, lugar e vazio, dentro e fora, tensão e flexão, dissolução da forma e autonomia da cor. Ao longo de sua trajetória, tem participado em projetos independentes, exposições coletivas e uma individual, no Brasil.
A rulote interessou-me sobretudo como objeto nómada. Neste sentido, a acumulação de malas numa pequena embarcação é uma alusão aos movimentos migratórios, que tantas vezes, de forma precária e clandestina, cruzam as fronteiras reduzindo a dimensão humana a um mero valor objetual ou a um valor de carga.
Nuno Viegas
NUNO VIEGAS (Portugal, 1977) participou, em 2000, na Exposição Comemorativa do 10º Aniversário da Galeria Arte Periférica, Lisboa, e realizou a exposição de finalistas do prémio CELPA - Vieira da Silva, Fundação Arpad-Szénes/Vieira da Silva, Lisboa. Destacam-se exposições individuais na galeria Arte Periférica: “A de Animal” e “Parafernália” (2011), “Temor e tremor” (2009), “A nuvem nódoa” (2008), “O precipitado” (2006), “Lava” (2003) e “Captura” (2002). Participou nas exposições coletivas Stand Arte Periférica, em Madrid – ARCO’03, ARCO’04 e ARCO’05, no Centro de Congressos de Lisboa e na Feira Internacional de Lisboa - Arte Lisboa, entre 2001 e 2010. Em 2005, elaborou a ilustração da revista Colóquio Letras da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
Entrada gratuita para jovens até aos 10 anos no Teatro Praga
Entrada livre – não é necessário levantamento de bilhetes
*Theatre performances open to people aged 12
**Music performances open to people aged over 4
***Film sessions open to people aged over 12
Theater Praga: Free admission for young people aged under 10
Free admission – no need to lift tickets
Passes / Subscriptions
Haverá à venda na Fundação um Passe “Próximo Futuro” que contemplará todos os espetáculos do Programa “Próximo Futuro” que decorrerão entre 22 de junho a 8 de julho 2012, com um preço fixo de: €46.80 (desconto de 60%). A data de início de compra da assinatura é dia 12 de maio até à data limite de dia 21 de junho. / There will be on sale at the Foundation a Subscription “Próximo Futuro” that will include all shows of the Program "Next Future" to be held from June 22 to July 8, 2012, with a fixed price of: €46.80. The first day for the subscription purchase is May 12 and the deadline for the subscription purchase is June 21.
Passes sujeitos à disponibilidade existente / subscriptions subject to availability.
Bilhetes avulsos / Single tickets
Os bilhetes podem ser comprados em qualquer bilheteira da Fundação ou através do site da Fundação a partir de dia 12 de maio, exceto para a venda de passes, que deverá ser feita apenas nas bilheteiras da Fundação (compras online não obrigam a levantamento de bilhetes, apenas será necessário imprimir o bilhete em formato PDF e apresentá-lo à entrada do espetáculo). / Tickets can be purchased at any of the Foundation’s ticket offices or through the Foundation’s website, starting from may 12,except for the sale of subscriptions which should be done only at the Foundation’s ticket offices (online shopping does not require lifting tickets, you only need to print the ticket in PDF format and submit it at the entrance of the show).
Na hora que precede o início de cada espetáculo só serão vendidos bilhetes para o próprio dia./ In the hour preceding the beginning of each show, tickets will be sold only for that day.
A venda de bilhetes para o Teatro do Bairro poderá ser sempre realizada através da Fundação e/ou, do Teatro do Bairro, neste caso uma hora antes do início do espetáculo. / Ticket sales for the Teatro do Bairro can always be held at the Foundation and / or, at the Teatro do Bairro, in this case, one hour prior to the show.
Descontos / Discounts
Desconto de 30% / Discount of 30% - Maiores de 65 anos / over 65 years old
Desconto de 50% / Discount of 50% - Jovens até aos 25 anos / people aged under 25 years old
Descontos não acumuláveis / Discounts not cumulative
Sessões de Cinema / Film sessions – Preço único/ Single price
This programme may be changed without prior notice
Notas/Notes: Entrada para todos os espetáculos deve fazer-se pela porta da Rua Dr. Nicolau de Bettencourt, exceto para os espetáculos realizados no Grande Auditório - FCG, que se deverá fazer ou pela entrada do edifício central ou pela porta do “Jardim das Rosas”. / Entry to all shows should be made through the door next to Street Dr. Nicolau de Bettencourt, except for performances held in the Grande Auditório - FCG, which should be done either through the main building entrance or through the door next to the "Jardim das Rosas / Roses Garden".
BILHETEIRA / INFORMAÇÕES
TICKET OFFICE / INFORMATION
Bilheteira / Ticket Office
•Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
Avenida de Berna 45 A - 1067-001 Lisboa
2ª a 6ª: 10:00 – 19:00
Tel. (+351) 21 782 3700
•Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
Rua Dr. Nicolau de Bettencourt - 1050-078 Lisboa
3ª a domingo / Sunday: 10:00 – 18:00
Tel. (+351) 21 782 3474/83
e uma hora antes do início dos espetáculos.
and one hour before the start of evening performances.
A Festa da Literatura e do Pensamento do Norte de África inicia-se a 22 de Junho com um debate em que participarão vários autores de blogs do Norte de África e Médio Oriente. Na impossibilidade de apresentar todos os autores e blogs fundamentais que são activistas fundamentais na cena política destas regiões vamos apresentar alguns.
Hoje, Sofiane Ouissi, da Tunísia.
SOFIANE OUISSI (Tunísia, 1972) é coreógrafo e agente cultural. Escolheu as suas performances como planos de ação para a reforçar e ampliar as vozes de luta na Tunísia. Através do Coletivo Cidade Sonho, escolhe uma forma festiva e alegre de criar espaços livres de expressão e, principalmente, de encontrar prazer na troca e na luta pela partilha de ideias numa construção conjunta: o Brainstorming. Para além disso, através de ZAT e Laaroussa, fábrica artística no espaço popular de uma revista especializada na voz da população marginalizada, consegue que a comunidade cultural da Tunísia participe no seu desejo de luta, a fim de compartilhar e expressar a cultura.
Brother and sister, Sofiane and Selma Ouissi are two main figures of the current Arab dance scene. They have been performing and creating choreographies together since the beginning of their careers. Their last piece, Here(s), is a dance performance using Skype as creative tool, with Yacine Sebti assisting in the software and interactive installation.
After we saw Here(s) on 13 January 2012 at the Berlin Haus der Kulturen der Welt in the framework of the Meeting Points 6 Festival, we conducted the following interview with them:
Binder & Haupt: When we entered the auditorium in Berlin where the stage for your performance was set up, we could see a divided video projection, showing respectively a clock ticking in Tunis and Paris. Already while waiting for the performance to start, feelings and thoughts about issues like "absence", "separation", as well as the questioning about "present instant and place" (here & now) were unavoidable. And knowing that you always work closely together, we felt immediately that it was not a staging of a fictive situation but a "reality", which you have experienced or are still experiencing directly. What is this reality of your lives, and how did you come about to transcend it in this way?
Selma & Sofiane Ouissi: For us, art must nourish itself from life and more precisely from our life, our conditions, our time, and our personal situation. It’s about making art not locked up in a studio (and in any case, we don’t really have the luxury of this kind of enclosure) but in the context of our everyday lives. Financial conditions, visas, traveling all come into play. Also, it’s the idea to begin from the intimacy of plurality.
There’s also, indeed, the concept of the here-and-now. This concept emanates from the work, which then places itself, not outside of time, but rather in the eternity of the present. This work demonstrates the search of a way to make art and to continue to work artistically within the constraints imposed by our respective lives: distance. (Sofiane in Tunisia and Selma in Paris; Sofiane not able to travel easily and Selma stuck in Paris because of her pregnancy, not to mention a complete lack of financial means). We could not, however, stop working together. It was therefore necessary to invent and produce differently, starting from the current context of our realities. We had to invent a different way to perform the artistic act, to dance. We didn’t want to lose our energy in a rejection of the present — the here-and-now. At the same time, it’s a paradox because this concept we’re struggling against, this here-and-now, is also marking our separation in this very moment. The idea (from Nietzsche) is to try and replay the present moment, to rework it, to use it in order to adopt it, accept it, and through these tactics, to find a realization. It’s an experience of time and space; an intimate consciousness of what we can do with space-time, from these circumstances of this precise moment in our lives. The present can write itself as an appearance. And anyway, in our country, if we don’t have this self-determination, governed by I don’t know what kind of power, the drive to continue, we would easily finish by working in an entirely different domain, so much are the difficulties of being an artist. The creative possibilities are the constants.
Furthermore, there are circumstances of a territory, the constant need to be two in order to accomplish the creative act. We don’t know how to do it otherwise. In fact, in the artistic act, we are one person. It’s a way to function, to write of which we are conscious and that we naturally assume.
To come back to the here-and-now, the idea is to aestheticize this condition of working, which is imposed upon us and to share it because it seems unique yet also common to our time. We all communicate through the Internet. All of our work consists of finding a way in which to make choreographed events. Take as evidence this intermediary surface, this between-us. It’s also an unpredictable place from which many things can emerge independent of our own desires. We particularly like this idea that this space that is on view escapes us, it envelopes itself in small allusions, clues, objects from our lives (put on in our apartments without any scenography or premeditation) which calls up different images, different stories according to the one who is looking, who contributes their own suggestions. Maybe we can find the celebration of life here, in this modesty of little things without any kind of goal but rather in action of achievement. This gave us the idea to reunite a number of different people in the same place in order share the manifestation of a kind of intimate time and immerse oneself in this experience.
Binder & Haupt: How did you develop the choreography for this piece, and when did you decide to include further visual/technological solutions by working together with Yacine Sebti?
Selma & Sofiane Ouissi: We began working with the presence of a body in space, made the body play with this space in order to see what happened in the moment. That’s where we’ll talk of a performance of the here-and-now in an environment wherein the use of certain quotidian objects is re-interpreted (or not). We have therefore proceeded from improvisations, or observations of our movements in our respective apartments. We explored different proposals of each other’s gaze and the gaze of the screen. We forced ourselves to work within these limits and also through the unpremeditated constraints of our improvisations; we wrote this visually artistic and gesticulating language for one another. This involved a live execution which developed from the limits of our environment and from instantaneously trying to capture the other’s movement as it happened, to recover the initial gesture from which point an entire series of movements flowed and a thickened space or a transformed space was then created, or at least the suggestion of this. There is also an inevitable expenditure of energy that flows from these experimentations within this environment inhabited by our daily gestures and from this separation, narrowing the abyss of our separation. It was also about the capturing and the writing of a dramatization of the quotidian body in its intimate environment; in this immediate space and with the medium the most immediate possible — the body. We performed this while trying to aesthetically infer the least amount possible from this spontaneous poetry of present-ness. We were looking for the minutia in the instant or the simplicity in presence that then changes radically with the start of this imaginary screening.
In order to create a scenography of this space, this domestic environment, we worked with Yacine Sebti who often redesigned, deconstructed this domestic space by amplifying certain details, by working through the concept of our separation in space and time, by offering a sophisticated deconstruction. I would say that Yacine, through video images, choreographed our movements inside of our apartments and our relationship with each other.
Binder & Haupt: The delayed sound in the life transmission underscores (for the viewer) the sense of "effort" of building this technological bridge, but at the same time it has a kind of existential resonance. How do you both relate to sound and rhythm during the performance?
Selma & Sofiane Ouissi: The sound delay, at first, created problems, above all for Yacine, which seemed necessary to account for and accept in this new form of communication. We had tried, in fact, to understand it, to capture this delay in order to write our choreographed events. At the same time, this delay offered an almost amplification of our reality with all the energy that one can employ to make oneself understood and to understand another, these inevitable delays that penetrate the imagination of the other, and help us to come to perceive in real time how to compose and decompose the reality of our communication and how it could have carried out the imaginary mutation of our relationship by trying to make artistic traces out of this relationship. Finally, the delay allow us to forget preoccupying ourselves with creating a linear reading, well constructed from the work and to come closer to a kind of real discontinuity in our form of communication. This also permits an active perception of the spectator with the incessant play of recognition, of sorting, of re-appropriation, of recycling.
Binder & Haupt: When each of you looks close into the camera, we as audience get the impression that you are directly looking at us, but when Selma picks her eyebrows using the screen as mirror, we are like voyeurs. How do you "feel" or "think" the audience during the performance?
Selma & Sofiane Ouissi: Indeed, we are playing on different meanings of the gaze: the gaze of the other, the recipient of the gaze, etc. With this particular piece, we are inviting the spectator to take on the attitude of the intimate witness of our everyday lives, our routines, our apartments. This engenders a different relationship with the spectators through which the spectator becomes sometimes witness, sometimes confidant, and to whom we voluntarily give the possibility of being a voyeur. During a typical day, our gaze experiments with the status of these different gazes and also intimate relationship with one another. And again, with the Internet, we find it normal to attend to and to circulate scenes of our intimacy.
And then, there’s also what we believe to see, what we think we master and which finally gets diverted in order to make us think that we are masters of our lives.
Binder & Haupt: In 2007 you created the multidisciplinary festival Dream City in the public space of Tunis, with participation of many visual artists, and which will take place again in September this year. How similar or different is the role of a choreographer from that of a curator?
Selma & Sofiane Ouissi: Dream City before becoming a biennial of contemporary art in a public space is the crystallization of our desire for choreography. We wanted, already in 2006, to find a way to choreograph a citizen’s march in the city of Tunis: a choreographed, collective, and festive experience that speaks to the presence and the consciousness of a population. Then, meeting Frie Leysen and Tarek Abou El Fetouh, helped us to grow this choreographed march: it would be sown with the seeds of artistic works that produced a kind of unpredictability that accompanies a collective march. We passionately created Dream City as a finished event but we organized what we call dream-upheavals which are strategies of accompaniment by selected artists in the search of different interventions: of the humanities, of art, of public space — in such interventions we meet the artist, in their doubts, in their solitude, in their intuitions, in the moment of their creation. All this in the spirit of that which changes, diverts, slows for a moment, takes off again, we see movement again, multiple perspectives of individuals and emotional beings. We love bringing all of this together. I don’t know if we were curators. We are what we try to engage — an action of becoming that reinvents itself, the rest doesn’t really matter. The final product is not important.
Binder & Haupt: Are there any aspects or preliminary information about what we can expect this year at Dream City that you could already comment on?
Selma & Sofiane Ouissi: We can say that the perceptions of those artists whose societies experienced a "liberating" revolution are unexpected. These artists’ forms of searching and of accompaniment during the past nine months are finally producing a concern for what is currently happening, developing in our society.
O Passadiço, criado este ano para o jardim da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, tem como proposta artística a sobreposição de planos independentes que, quando percebidos a uma certa distância, provocam o olhar e a perceção do espetador.
MARCELO JÁCOME (Brasil, 1980) vive e trabalha no Rio de Janeiro, onde é arquiteto e urbanista. Em 2009, ingressou na EAV-Escola de Artes Visuais, do Parque Lage, onde é orientado por Iole de Freitas. Desenvolvendo a sua linguagem através da colagem e instalações, nas quais o papel é a principal matéria de trabalho, recorre às relações da reta e da curva, bidimensional e tridimensional, lugar e vazio, dentro e fora, tensão e flexão, dissolução da forma e autonomia da cor. Ao longo de sua trajetória, tem participado em projetos independentes, exposições coletivas e uma individual, no Brasil.
A Festa da Literatura e do Pensamento do Norte de África inicia-se a 22 de Junho com um debate em que participarão vários autores de blogs do Norte de África e Médio Oriente. Na impossibilidade de apresentar todos os autores e blogs fundamentais que são activistas fundamentais na cena política destas regiões vamos apresentar alguns.
Hoje, Mohamed Siam, do Egipto.
MOHAMED SIAM (Egito, 1981) é documentarista independente e realizador de filmes de ficção. Como primeiro assistente de realização, trabalhou em projetos de longas-metragens como o documentário “A Cidade dos Mortos”, coprodução luso-espanhola financiada pelo Canal Plus que estreou no IDFA 2009 (Festival Internacional de Filmes Documentários de Amesterdão) e recebeu a distinção de Melhor Filme, na Documenta de Madrid, em 2010. Recentemente foi primeiro assistente de realização no filme “Nos últimos dias da cidade”, do realizador egípcio Tamer Said, financiado pelo Global Film Initiative e pelo Cinereach, entre outros fundos. É ainda o fundador e diretor artístico do Centro Cinematográfico Artkhana, em Alexandria, um espaço artístico que providencia apoio técnico e formativo para realizadores.
Ons Abid, nascida na Tunisia em 1979, é fotógrafa freelancer e trabalha para as revistas Jeune Afrique (sediada em Paris), Afrique Magazine e, mais recentemente, Paris Match. Licenciou-se em Design Gráfico no Instituto Superior de Belas Artes de Tunes (ISBAT), em 2004. Em 2005 trabalhou simultaneamente como fotógrafa e como diretora artística numa agência publicitária. Em 2009 completou o mestrado em Ciência e Artes no mesmo Instituto (ISBAT), onde ficou a lecionar em 2010. Vive entre Tunes e Paris, dedicando-se a múltiplos projetos na área da fotografia documental e do video.
O Passadiço, criado este ano para o jardim da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, tem como proposta artística a sobreposição de planos independentes que, quando percebidos a uma certa distância, provocam o olhar e a perceção do espetador.
MARCELO JÁCOME (Brasil, 1980) vive e trabalha no Rio de Janeiro, onde é arquiteto e urbanista. Em 2009, ingressou na EAV-Escola de Artes Visuais, do Parque Lage, onde é orientado por Iole de Freitas. Desenvolvendo a sua linguagem através da colagem e instalações, nas quais o papel é a principal matéria de trabalho, recorre às relações da reta e da curva, bidimensional e tridimensional, lugar e vazio, dentro e fora, tensão e flexão, dissolução da forma e autonomia da cor. Ao longo de sua trajetória, tem participado em projetos independentes, exposições coletivas e uma individual, no Brasil.
We are thrilled to announce that Nicene Kossentini has been selected as the first artist-in-residence for /A.R.I.A/ Artist Residency in Algiers, a new residency program in Algiers founded by international artist Zineb Sedira. Usually based in Tunis, photographer and filmmaker Nicene will relocate to the Algerian capital from 22nd May to 26th June 2012.
Nicene Kossentini on her residency project:
"My surname literally means "from Constantine" (name of an Algerian city). I unfortunately don't hold any other tangible link [to this city] than this very remote origin of a name handed down from father to son. But I have always believed that there were other invisible links that bind me to Algeria."Therefore, during my residency in Algiers, I plan to develop a project which questions notions of identity, genealogy and transmission through
photographic portraits of anonymous people that I met in Algiers and with whom I will invent imaginary links.
Artist Residency in Algiers (/A.R.I.A/) was founded by artist Zineb Sedira. Starting its one-year pilot programme in 2012, /A.R.I.A/ will host two artists-in-residence (Nicene Kossentini and Alfredo Jaar) and a visual artist based in Gaza in partnership with Art School Palestine.
The programme aims at building cross-border dialogues and to create an ongoing dynamic network across diverse international art communities within and beyond Algeria. It provides opportunities for emerging and established artists from North Africa and across the world to conduct artistic and cultural research and production./A.R.I.A/ hosts resident artists and connects them with local and regional networks to facilitate the development of ideas related to the Algerian context. This programme aspires to project a positive awareness and visibility of Algeria and its surroundings to global audiences.
Nicene Kossentini was born in Sfax and currently lives and works in Tunis (Tunisia). She graduated from the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts in Tunis and the Université Marc Bloch in Strasbourg (France). She also attended courses and training at the Studio National des Arts Contemporains Le Fresnoy and at Ecole de l'Image Les Gobelins (France). Kossentini is currently Assistant Professor of Experimental Cinema at University of Tunis. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Tunisia, Europe and Africa.
For further press information and to request images
A Festa da Literatura e do Pensamento do Norte de África inicia-se a 22 de Junho com um debate em que participarão vários autores de blogs do Norte de África e Médio Oriente. Na impossibilidade de apresentar todos os autores e blogs fundamentais que são activistas fundamentais na cena política destas regiões vamos apresentar alguns.
Hoje, Ahmed El Attar, do Egipto.
AHMED EL ATTAR (Egito, 1969) é diretor de teatro independente, tradutor e dramaturgo. É fundador e diretor artístico do Orient Productions e do Temple Independent Theatre Company, fundador e diretor-geral do estúdio da Fundação Emad Eddin e diretor artístico do Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF), um festival anual multidisciplinar de arte contemporânea, que ocorre todas as primaveras no centro de Cairo. As suas produções incluem “On the Importance of being an Arab” (2009) e "F**k Darwin or how I have learned to love socialism" (2007). A sua obra teatral tem sido apresentada em grandes teatros e festivais pela Europa e pelo Médio Oriente. El Attar é um Clore Fellow do Clore Leadership Programme (2008-2009), tendo-lhe sido atribuído o prémio de melhor argumento de teatro (2010) da Fundação Sawiris para o Desenvolvimento Social pela peça ”Life is beautiful or waiting for my uncle from America”. Foi escolhido, pela edição em árabe da revista Newsweek (26/4/05), como uma das 42 personalidades que mais influenciaram a mudança no mundo árabe.
"This is my advice"
Ahmed El Attar is an independent theater director, translator and Playwright who lives in Paris and works in the Middle East. Founder and artistic director of the Temple Independent Theater Company in Egypt. Has a BA in theater from the American University in Cairo and an MA in Arts and Cultural Management from Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle. "Mother I want to be a Millionaire" is his tenth production. His previous two performances are "Life is Beautiful or Waiting for My Uncle From America" and "On the Road to Nowhere, A Cairene Journey for Tourists and Lovers", which he also wrote and produced, have been performed in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Portugal, Germany and Sweden. El Attar is also a cultural operator, conceiving, organising and producing workshops tutored by European artists and targeting young independent artists in the Middle East working in various artistic disciplines, such as theater, lighting, comic strip art and electronic music. He is a member of the advisory board of Arteast in New York and President of the Femec, Forum Euro-Mediteraneen des Cultures in Paris.
El Attar will open the first independent rehearsal space for the performing and visual arts in Cairo in December 2004, a project he has been working on for the last few years.
A dark bar that looks like a big cellar. Small candle, glowing on every table, the only sources of illumination. At the back end, almost in the black, one hardly distinguishes the bar. In front of the bar, in second plan, three tables. The first is occupied by two men, the second by a woman and two men and the third is empty.
In foreground, a table with a man sitting in profile. Late thirties, quiet, brown, of European type, dressed in jeans and summer shirt, rather relaxed. Emerges from the dark, a man, beginning of the thirties mat skin, blue linen jacket, Calvin Klein jeans and a white T-shirt. Two beers in the hand, he sits down and gives a beer to the man sitting in profile while telling to him:
- I can’t believe that she left for the East?
- What can it do to you that she leaves for the East, for the West, or for Jupiter? Are you going to stop mingling on her business?
(Silence, each takes a mouthful of beer)
- Are you still waiting for her to fall in love with you?
(He doesn't answer and continuous to drink)
- When are you going to understand that here it is not as in your city?
No matter the size of your city or the prestigious names that it carries, Paris of the Orient, the Princess of the Mediterranean, no matter the number of stories engraved on the walls of its passages thousand years old. It will never look like our cities. Your cities, your villages, where people know themselves, speak, or meet by chance in streets, where hundred thousand people spend their days under a stuffy heat, have nothing to do with our cities. Those strong emotions of joy or pain, expressed without forethought nor conscience of your background, at no matter what hour of the day or the night, don't have their places here.
When are going to learn, that contrarily to past times, it is not the colour of your skin, nor the colour of your hair that entails prejudice anymore. Today, your very existence entails prejudice.
Stop speaking of Europe and the direction that she chose to take. Please, forget your theories about the origin of the western contemporary culture and the cultural ties woven through centuries between the North and the South of the Mediterranean. No one will believe you. How do you want anyone to accept as true that your unbelieving ancestors, son of Mohamed the Bedouin of the desert, rediscovered and translated the Greek inheritance, the very origin of the pride of Europe, yet forbidden of access during centuries within the continent that carries the name of the charming young woman that Zeus seduced in white Taurus of golden horns.
That the work of your ancestors in the different domains of knowledge was the fountain upon which their European colleagues draw to build the basis of present knowledge, not only regrouping the knowledge of the Greek but also the one of the Indians and Chinese yet far from us. And that all it has been naturally transmitted in this Mediterranean basin who looks like the tub where your son plays every evening at bath time with these toys in plastic manufactured in China.
No one will believe you.
It is sufficient to look at you, anxious and uncertain, aggressive and embittered, proud and dangerous, to understand that it is not true. It is sufficient to go in your city, a living definition of chaos and misery, to understand that it is not true. It is sufficient to read the economic and social statistics and the analyses of the political regimes in place since the eternity, and that change only by Divine or American intervention, to understand that the stories that you tell are only recorded in your head. And your head is heavy of carrying thousands of stories, thousands of apologies, thousands of explanations... of carrying your existence.
So, that’s it, Europe made her choice and her choice has not included you. And in spite of your instinctive intelligence, your cultural inheritance and your intellectual miscegenation, you didn't see it coming. Did you believe that one fine day you where going to be precious to the eyes of beautiful Europe? She who took advantage of you, made you drag yourself behind her, mistreated you so often. A girl who only thinks about her pleasure. Did you really think she was going to love you one day?
You have never been part of her choice and you will never be. For her you are only an instrument to achieve her dreams and her desires, that are sometimes very expensive. And if one evening she feels lonely, without any available lover, she might call you. And you will feel, for some seconds, as if it were you she had chosen. But some minutes later, the emptiness to the other tip of thread will recall you that you were mistaken once again. She will leave and she will let you all alone with your stories, waiting for her next phone call, that might never arrive…
This is my advice, stop loving her. She is not for you this Europe.
A Festa da Literatura e do Pensamento do Norte de África inicia-se a 22 de Junho com um debate em que participarão vários autores de blogs do Norte de África e Médio Oriente. Na impossibilidade de apresentar todos os autores e blogs fundamentais que são activistas fundamentais na cena política destas regiões vamos apresentar alguns.
Hoje, Bouchra Khalili, de Marrocos.
BOUCHRA KHALILI (Marrocos, 1975) estudou Cinema, na Sorbonne Nouvelle, e Artes Visuais, na École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts, Paris-Cergy. O trabalho de Khalili em vídeo, instalações mistas de média e impressões combinam uma abordagem conceptual com uma prática documental para explorar questões de nomadismo, existências clandestinas e a ’experiência emigrante‘, com uma especificidade para o destino dos migrantes, na medida em que, concretamente, resumem assuntos que são fundamentalmente regidos pela itinerância. No seu trabalho, ela conjuga linguagem, subjetividade, o mínimo de palavras, territórios e rotas de passagem, investigando a inter-relação entre as migrações contemporâneas e a história colonial e a geografia física e imaginária. O trabalho de Khalili tem sido amplamente divulgado em todo o mundo, incluindo recentemente no MoMA, como parte da exibição do filme "Mapping Subjectivity" (2011), na 10ª Bienal Sharjah (2011), na Marian Goodman Gallery (Paris, 2011), na Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisboa, 2011) e em La Triennale (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2012), entre outros.
Bouchra Khalili has devoted herself to video work, both in single channel and installation form, since 2002. The artist uses this medium for its impurity, which allows her to place her work at the very limits of cinema and the fine arts, documentary and experimental work, blurring the lines between these two practices. Her videos explore the Mediterranean area seen as a territory dedicated to a wandering, nomadic existence. She documents the places she passes through, their images and the images they generate. Khalili produces representations of these spaces’ mental dimension by placing them in an unusual perceptive experience, thus testifying to the contemporary reality of emigration and its stories.
For the Storytellers exhibit at the galerieofmarseille, Bouchra Khalili will present works produced in 2007 and 2008 between Paris, New York, Marseille and Istanbul. By combining physical and imaginary geography, Khalili aims to draw an alternative map of contemporary migratory trajectories. Purposefully mixing up topographic identifiers that might reveal the location of the areas she explores, Khalili’s undertakes an intensive practice of rearrangements, as much geographic as artistic and conceptual.
With Mapping Journey (videos and photographs, 2008), Khalili compares the lived experience of emigration with the flatness of geographic maps. Entrer dans l’Histoire (“Enter into History”, silkscreen on adhesive, 2008), which recalls the Arab calligram tradition, reveals an alternative map of Africa: one that describes the misunderstandings that weigh upon a continent that “has not fully entered history”.
Circle Line (video installation) suggests a possible nomenclature for immigration to the United States. On two screens, sentences excerpted from a questionnaire for green card applicants and fragments from a conversation with an illegal immigrant answer one another, while the soundtrack of a naturalization ceremony is played back on a third screen. Simultaneously, images of the city unfold one after another in hypnotic traveling shots.
This complex relationship between documentary and ghostly images, in different languages, of “in” and “off” sounds, of real or potential stories, is typical of Bouchra Khalili’s videos, most notably in the triptych Des Histoires Vraies – Straight Stories (video, 2006 (first part) and 2008 (second and third parts)). While the first part takes place between the south of Spain and the North of Morocco, the second part presented in the exhibition explores Istanbul, and more specifically, the Bosphore area. Like the Straight of Gibraltar, the Straight of Bosphore is simultaneously a physical border that separates two continents (Europe and Asia) and an imaginary one. But since the 1990’s, this intermediary zone has mostly become a labyrinth where migrants in transit wait before going further west. For most, the place that was intended as a temporary stop becomes permanent. Through the constant movement of spatial, visual and auditory disconnections, Straight Stories- Part 2 (3 single-channel videos, 2008) unveils a mental expedition that takes us to meet the people that haunt these places, and who confide their hopes to go or stay, to return home or continue their travels.
Artist Bouchra Khalili talks about the relevance of mapping and mapmaking to her work as part of the artists in conversation series during Iniva's Whose Map is it? exhibition.
MARISA VINHA (Portugal, 1973) é designer e interessa-se por Curadoria e por Arte no Espaço Público. Enquanto assistente do arquiteto Alessandro Mendini, desenhou e produziu diversas exposições itinerantes, fez projetos para empresas como Alessi, Bisazza, Cartier, Swarovski e Swatch. Participou na exposição coletiva “Toldos no jardim”, integrada no Programa Distância e Proximidade da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, realizou a Instalação “Framed Landescapes” para Domaine de Boisbuchet ― Vitra Design Museum, e as instalações cenográficas do programa ”Palavras daqui, dali e dacolá“ na Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, em 2010. Atualmente, os seus projetos dividem-se entre Lisboa e São Paulo.
A Festa da Literatura e do Pensamento do Norte de África inicia-se a 22 de Junho com um debate em que participarão vários autores de blogs do Norte de África e Médio Oriente. Na impossibilidade de apresentar todos os autores e blogs fundamentais que são activistas fundamentais na cena política destas regiões vamos apresentar alguns.
ABOUBAKR JAMAÏ (Marrocos, 1968) é o co-editor do site de notícias marroquino Iakome.com e membro não-residente no Ash Center para a Governação e Inovação Democrática da Universidade de Harvard. Começou sua carreira na área financeira, como cofundador do primeiro banco de investimento independente de Marrocos, em 1993. Entre 1997 e 2007, foi redator e editor do principal semanário marroquino Le Journal Hebdomadaire. Em 2008, foi professor convidado na Universidade de San Diego, onde lecionou cursos sobre o Islão Político e a Política no Médio Oriente. Os seus artigos têm sido publicados em diversos órgãos de comunicação social (The New York Times, Time Magazine, El País, Le Monde, Le Monde Diplomatique). Recebeu o Prémio Internacional da Liberdade de Imprensa do Comité para a Proteção dos Jornalistas, em 2003. Foi selecionado pelo Fórum Económico Mundial como um Jovem Líder Global para 2005.
Co-Founder of Curiouser and blogger
Aboubakr Jamaï is the founder and editor of the Moroccan weekly magazine Le Journal Hebdomadaire. Jamaï began his career in finance, co-founding Morocco's first independent investment bank in 1993. After two years advising international emerging market funds with holdings in North Africa, the company, Upline Securities, became the first Moroccan-based bank ever selected to manage a privatization project in Morocco. In 1996, M. Jamaï joined the Executive Secretariat of the Middle East and North Africa Economic Summit as a financial and economic adviser. This organization was set up by the sponsors of the Middle East peace process to foster economic cooperation in the region.
He co-founded Le Journal and Assahifa in 1997 and 1998. Since 2008, he is visiting Scholar at the University of San Diego where he teaches courses on Political Islam and Politics in The Middle East. His articles were published in The New York Times, Time Magazine, El Pais, Le Monde, Le Monde Diplomatique.
Aboubakr Jamaï won the Committee To Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award in 2003. In January 2008, he won the first Newhouse School of communication at Syracuse University’s “Tully Center Free Speech Award”. In December 2010, he won the Gebran Tueni Award, the annual prize of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).
Jamaï has been selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader for 2005. He was a Yale World Fellow in 2004 at Yale University. He was a Nieman Fellow in 2007 at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and a Mason Fellow in 2008 at Harvard University. M. Jamaï holds a Master of Business Administration from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School.
Dialogue autour des propositions artistiques de 250 artistes de 37 pays.
Avec la participation de plus de 250 artistes de 37 pays qui seront exposés dans plusieurs lieux emblématiques de la ville, dont le Sofitel Casablanca Tour Blanche, la première édition de La B.I.C. (la Biennale Internationale de Casablanca) fera vivre la capitale économique du Royaume au rythme de l’art, du 15 au 30 juin 2012. Une première édition ambitieuse qui permettra à tous de se rendre compte de la qualité et du dynamisme de la scène artistique marocaine tout en connectant celle-ci aux circuits internationaux. Une connexion naturelle, puisque le Maroc est depuis toujours le carrefour, le hub comme l’on dit désormais, des routes reliant l’Afrique, l’Orient et l’Occident.
Cette première édition de La B.I.C. permettra de découvrir les derniers travaux d’artistes marocains marquants. Ceux-ci côtoieront et entreront en résonance avec les propositions de plasticiens étrangers originaires des quatre continents. En prenant pour thème le dialogue, cette édition s’inscrit dans une démarche universaliste, à l’instar de la démarche plastique actuelle.
En plus du dialogue interculturel et intergénérationnel, la biennale souhaite mettre en place un dialogue qu’elle estime tout aussi essentiel, celui qui va de l’artiste/de l’oeuvre au public. Un effort tout particulier sera fait sur la signalétique et les informations disponibles sur place. L’organisation de visites guidées, la mise en place de conférences à caractère didactique et de workshops ont pour but de donner à tous les publics accès à l’oeuvre.
Rendez-vous donc dès le 15 juin prochain, au tout nouveau Sofitel Casablanca Tour Blanche, le cœur d’un parcours artistique qui conduira ensuite les visiteurs à l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, l’ex-cathédrale du Sacré-Cœur, la Fabrique Culturelle (les anciens Abattoirs), l’Espace Actua et plusieurs galeries d’art partenaires, à la rencontre de propositions artistiques venues des quatre continents.
Este álbum conta a história da minha Tunísia, a história dos negros anos vistos através dos meus olhos: através da minha experiência como estudante, uma jovem rebelde e dissidente, através dos meus anos de luta artística e ideológica, e através das minhas lágrimas de imigrante, do meu sofrimento e do meu amor à liberdade. Dedico este álbum a todos aqueles que deram suas vidas para que, um dia, a Tunísia pudesse ser livre. O caminho é longo, mas todos os dias... um novo nascer do sol e novas esperanças surgem... e nós somos essas esperanças.
(Tunísia, 1982) é autora, compositora, guitarrista e cantora que vem trazer um incrível novo estilo de som à música tunisina. Dotada de uma voz marcante, evoca Joan Baez, a Irmã Marie Keyrouz e a diva libanesa Fairouz, com o seu estilo cativante e lírico, com o rock poderoso, com as influências orientais e o trip hop (Emel colaborou com Adrian Thaws AKA Tricky). Começou a sua carreira artística aos 8 anos de idade no palco do pequeno anfiteatro, no subúrbio Ibn Sina de Tunes, onde viveu até à idade de 25 anos. Mudou-se para França para prosseguir a sua carreira como cantora. A canção "Kelmti Horra" (my word is free) foi adotada pelos revolucionários da “Primavera Árabe” e cantada nas ruas de Tunes.
I’m at the Cinemateca Portuguesa in Lisbon, the perfect location to web chat with Mohamed Siam, an Egyptian filmmaker and art manager involved in organizing the Egyptian Revolution.
City of the Dead
Siam will be receiving an honorary degree for his role as a filmmaker from the University of San Francisco (USF). He has undergone numerous professional training courses in various areas of filmmaking, including scriptwriting, cinematography, editing and animation. He is co-founder and artistic director of Artkhana, an established film and animation space in Alexandria (Egypt). He has directed films for Softoria, a Canadian animation firm and has taught film widely, both live action and animation. He has wide experience as director, editor and cinematographer. His most recent assignment was as assistant director and local producer for a Portuguese French co-production, shot in the City of the Dead in Cairo and recently screened in Lisbon, Portugal.
He is currently filming a new feature documentary about the Egyptian revolution, to be integrated into a broader project about Arab political awakening and uprising which he will begin filming in Morocco next Summer. It deals with the concept of leadership in the Middle East and how this can eventually lead to dictatorship.
Liliana Navarra: It's very reductive to just call you a ‘film director’. You are a young artist who, in 2005, decided to create Artkhana. Can you talking about your project?
Mohamed Siam: Artkhana was someone else's initiative that I believed in and decided to push further until it was actually founded. I wanted to provide a space that I needed myself when I was my target audience's age, between 18 and 25. Since then, it has provided the opportunities to practice with, learn from, observe and interact with film and animation experts, to create this beneficial friction as early as possible in the career of local independent artists. As an artist, I work in many disciplines but my main one is cinema and, specifically, film directing. But as an auteur filmmaker, I do write, film, edit and sound design my material if I need to. My professional filmmaking experience began in 2003 and has since become intensive. I was fortunate to work with some acclaimed filmmakers in Egypt and abroad, and my network is developing to the point of involving some famous names in my future film projects.
LN: You've made several short films that hover between fiction and documentary in productions funded by, amongst others, the Anna Lindh Foundation, European Union, Jesuit Cultural Center, Pro-Helvetia and the United Nations. When did your creative adventures begin?
MS: I studied psychology and then I started working in cinema whilst studying, in 2003, by editing and assisting on films.
LN: You've just finished a short, Time Remaining (2011). What was the inspiration behind it?
MS: Memory is a great inspiring motif for me. I also feel that, as Egyptians, we are all suffering from long-term amnesia and forgetting who we are.
LN: Your film is about memory and loneliness: a man lives alone and doesn’t let other people enter his private space. Who or what inspired you to write about this condition?
MS: A friend of mine, who is like my mentor and inspiration as an artist, had the same experience of poisoning himself in one old memory for too long. He is a writer himself and he’s so interesting and dear to me that I felt I wanted to honour him with a story about memory.
LN: Last week in Lisbon, The City of the Dead (2009) by Serge Truffaut was screened, a film about the El Arafa cemetery in Cairo, which, as part of its wide festival recognition, played in the official competition in “IDFA” Amsterdam 2009 and won the Best Film Prize at Documenta Film Festival 2010. Having worked on this project, can you tell us what difficulties you and the crew encountered making it?
MS: Difficulties there were, related to convincing people we were not crazy to film their lives. My work involved casting characters, and scouting and choosing locations, so over one and a half years I maintained sustainable relationships with the people and places as the film developed over time. We were shooting without any official permits due to the maze they can get you into, without succeeding in getting proper permission to film, so it was always edgy for any officials or police to know about us, especially for the local crew. The cinematographer, Nancy, and myself, we were always threatened to be expelled from any cinema union.
LN: Do you think that the foreign gaze can falsify the reality of that place? And do you think that the documentary has a neutral gaze?
MS: I believe a foreign gaze can see beyond a local one, but the problem is the foreign portrayal of reality always depends on quick impressions and hot stories that appeal to what the west and many other civilizations want to believe about us. On the other hand, there are many profound views, such as this film has, that depend on patient observation and meaningful interaction with people and streets rather then quick, dirty, cheap journalism. We also contribute to the false image by being passive and apathetic about projecting the essence of our beautiful heritage and noble civilization.
LN: The modern atmosphere of profiteering and the heavy entertainment taxes have resulted in drastically lowering the standards of modern Egyptian cinema. Do you think that the Revolution will bring great changes in Egyptian film business?
MS: I think film producers' narrow minds have got the industry to a point where they only feed what is successful and attracts the pretentious star system. I believe that the Egyptian independent cinema now has the power to involve people in real stories and characters after the misguiding of the media institution empowered by the old repressive, corrupt regime. Now is a new era for Egyptians to see the real streets and facts. It reminds me of Neorealism in Italy after the war when there were no decent studios, and it was the birth of a new wave based on people's needs and new circumstances.
LN: What was the position of Egyptian artists before and after the Revolution? Did they have an active role?
MS: Egyptian artists were really important in the sense of street language, when we talk about the revolution. I believe some art works, like graffiti or painting on big boards to address the people in the streets, were the main clear instant message of unity and concern. For the future, for Egyptian artists, it has, at least now, become inevitable for them to avoid politics and go back to their egoist ivory towers again. Art has to be involving and sincere, otherwise it will be neglected sooner or later, and the latter is less prone to occur.
LN: Can you tell us about your next project? We know that you are directing and filming a feature documentary, Arab Modern Times, about the history of the repression before the Egyptian and Arab revolution.
MS: My next project is divided into two: a- A feature film about the Egyptian police, state security and the institutions attached to the past repressive regime; it will be seen from the angle of the police officers who did the torturing, framing people, corruption, etc. Their voices are recorded but their faces won't be shown; animation will be used to compensate and also to imagine part of the unseen incidents. It is a real document about the absence and total neglect of human rights by Egyptians, AKA proudly my people. b- A long-term film research about the awakening of Arab countries in the popular rage against the long repression from Arab leaders who took presidency as a heritage or property versus the past apathy of Arabs towards their own country, liberty and destiny.
Time is running out and we need to turn off our laptops, but we’ll keep in touch to find out about the new post-revolution Egyptian reality. What will the dictator's fall bring us?
(Lisbon/Cairo April 2011)
Lilliana Navarra
Liliana Navarra, is a PHD candidate in cinema studies at Nova Universidade in Lisbon with a project on João César Monteiro and his cinema: she is also the creator of the first official website dedicated to him, www.joaocesarmonteiro.net
She is a freelance journalist involved in media studies. She collaboreted with NapoliFilmFestival (Naples, Italy) and Indielisboa Festival (Lisbon, Portugal) and organized "O'Curto" Napolitan Film Festival (Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Lisbon, Portugal) and a retrospective "Il favoloso mondo di G" dedicated to Ugo Gregoretti's cinema (Lisbon, Portugal).
Estão abertas as candidaturas para a Pós-Graduação em Islão Contemporâneo, Culturas e Sociedades, FCSH-UNL/CRIA, este ano com um corpo de docentes e conferencistas internacionais alargado e em articulação com o programa Próximo Futuro da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Podem encontrar o folheto relativo ao curso aqui, ou em anexo.
A pós-graduação envolve o Departamento Antropologia da FCSH-UNL, o Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia (Linha Cultura: Práticas, Políticas e Exibições/ NECI-Núcleo de Estudos em Contextos Islâmicos) e o Instituto de Línguas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (ILNOVA). Conta com diversos conferencistas nacionais e estrangeiros, em articulação com o programa Próximo Futuro da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian e com o ciclo de cinema produzido em contextos árabes e muçulmanos – ﻋﻳﻥ /Olhar – organizado pelo NECI/CRIA.
Público Alvo
Investigadores em ciências sociais e humanas e estudos comparativistas, membros de organizações governamentais em contextos maioritaria ou minoritariamente islâmicos, organizações governamentais e outros agentes nas áreas das relações interculturais nacionais e internacionais, agentes na área da saúde, membros do corpo diplomático, agentes do património e de gestão e animação cultural, professores, jornalistas.
Des salafistes se sont rassemblés devant la galerie “printemps des arts” au Palais El Ebdellia à la Marsa, dimanche 10 juin, pour protester contre l’exposition de certains tableaux qu’ils considèrent comme incompatibles avec leurs vision de la religion et contraires aux bonnes mœurs.
L’événement s’est passé en deux temps: le matin, trois salafistes sont venus pour manifester leur colère, dicter leurs exigences et menacer de revenir l’après midi ci la Galerie continuerait à exposer certains tableaux, les salafistes étaient accompagnés d’un avocat et d’un huissier de Justice pour faire un constat.
L’après midi, Med Ali Bouaziz (huissier notaire et ancien rcdiste) ainsi qu’un groupe de salafistes sont revenus protester et menacer de porter plainte auprès des tribunaux pour atteinte aux bonnes mœurs. Quelques échauffourées ont eu lieu entre certains exposants, quelques personnes du public et des salafistes.
Malgré la présence de la police, les salafistes ont réussi à pénétrer la galerie ce qui a exacerbé la tension entre les différents protagonistes.
La police a fait de son mieux pour contenir ses débordements qui deviennent malheureusement de plus en plus fréquents montrant une société déchirée entre un conservatisme de plus en plus radical et un besoin de modernisme et de démocratie.
Finalement après un long face à face très tendu, la police a réussi à disperser la foule.
MARCELO JÁCOME (Brasil, 1980) vive e trabalha no Rio de Janeiro, onde é arquiteto e urbanista. Em 2009, ingressou na EAV-Escola de Artes Visuais, do Parque Lage, onde é orientado por Iole de Freitas. Desenvolvendo a sua linguagem através da colagem e instalações, nas quais o papel é a principal matéria de trabalho, recorre às relações da reta e da curva, bidimensional e tridimensional, lugar e vazio, dentro e fora, tensão e flexão, dissolução da forma e autonomia da cor. Ao longo de sua trajetória, tem participado em projetos independentes, exposições coletivas e uma individual, no Brasil.
22 Jun 2012 – 30 Set 2012, Jardim da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Entrada livre
DANIELA THOMAS (Brasil, 1959) é cenógrafa, realizadora de cinema, encenadora de teatro, guionista e dramaturga. Realizou o seu primeiro cenário para a estreia de “All Strange Away”, de Samuel Beckett, apresentado no La MaMa Experimental Theatre, em Nova Iorque, em 1984. Tem-se dedicado também à criação de guiões e à realização de filmes como “Terra Estrangeira”, “Linha de Passe” e “Insolação”, longas-metragens selecionadas para a competição oficial dos Festivais de Cannes e Veneza (“Linha de Passe” ganhou a Palma de Ouro de melhor atriz, em 2007) e ao design de exposições. Os seus trabalhos já estiveram expostos nas Bienais de São Paulo, de 1987 e 1989, na Bienal do Mercosul, em 2009, e na Bienal de Lyon de 2011, estes últimos com a montagem da micropeça “Breath”, de Samuel Beckett.
Para o crítico Yan Michalski, "Daniela Thomas é uma extraordinária artista plástica do palco, que parte sempre de um choque visual básico, em vários casos constituído de paredes cuja altura desmedida e cuja textura insólita configuram uma ruptura violenta com os padrões realistas, e um ponto de partida para a criação de um universo fantasioso e simbólico, que fornece uma complexa soma de sugestões metafóricas sobre a situação dramática em que as personagens se encontram. Significativos, a este respeito, foram: a monumental biblioteca na qual ela ambientou magistralmente as três peças da Trilogia Kafka; o inesperado cenário para O Navio Fantasma, sem o qual a polêmica sugestão entre a ópera wagneriana e a mentalidade nazista empreendida pelo encenador nunca teria levantado vôo; ou, ainda, a cortina de tule por trás da qual ela esfumava toda a ação de Eletra Com Creta. Do mesmo modo, seus figurinos tendem a transformar as personagens em sugestões deturpadas de seres humanos reais, mas essa própria deformação se torna uma generosa fonte de informações poéticas sobre a maneira de esses personagens estarem no mundo. E cada superfície que ela cria na sua cenografia ou seus figurinos é um incomparável espaço preparado para receber e projetar com o máximo rendimento a personalíssima linguagem de iluminação que constitui o cartão de visita mais espetacular da gramática cênica de Gerald Thomas".
Samuel Beckett fut celui qui, face à la nécessité de consolider sa propre voix, prit tous les risques possibles et décida de dés-apprendre ce qu’il avait appris, et d’écrire en français — langue qu’il ne maîtrisait pas à la perfection — avec le désir de s’appauvrir encore. Dans Breath, sa pièce de théâtre la plus éphémère, Beckett laisse de côté la durée et son propre langage pour se concentrer sur le moment qui qualifie tout à la fois l’existence humaine et sa précarité. Breath a été écrit en anglais quelque temps avant d’être envoyée à New York, en 1969, en réponse à la demande de Kenneth Tynan d’une contribution à sa pièce Oh !Calcutta! Le texte original a d’abord été publié dans Gambit, vol. 4, n° 16 (1970). La pièce a été produite à l’Eden Theater, à New York, le 16 juin 1969, et a été jouée pour la première fois en Grande-Bretagne au Close Theater Club, à Glasgow, en octobre 1969.
Pour la Biennale, Daniela Thomas, très célèbre réalisatrice brésilienne et décoratrice de théâtre, a choisi de suivre à la perfection les instructions de Beckett. Elle a mis en scène Breath une première fois à Porto Alegre, au Brésil, à l’occasion de la 7e Biennale de Mercosul (2009) dont le commissariat a été assuré par Victoria Noorthoorn.
Description
Bruits de souffle, cris, jeu de lumière, déchets disposés au sol de manière « non verticale ».
En savoir plus
Le scénario de Breath est un texte de commande de Kenneth Tynian, écrivain et critique de théâtre anglais, directeur de la revue d’avant-garde théâtrale Oh ! Calcutta !, projet de spectacle érotique, produit à Broadway en 1969, avec des contributions de John Lennon, Jules Feiffer, Dan Greenburg, Jacques Levy, Leonard Melfi, David Newman, Robert Benton, Sam Shepard, Clovis Trouille, Kenneth Tynan and Sherman Yellen, et dont on trouve des enregistrements sur disques vinyls. Avec plus de 1400 représentations, ce spectacle est le plus joué à ce jour à Broadway. Kenneth Tynian n’a d’ailleurs pas hésité à affirmer que la pièce de Beckett avait été vue par « 85 millions spectateurs ». Beckett s’est définitivement brouillé avec Tynan suite aux premières représentations, ce dernier ayant choisi, à l’opposé du projet initial de Beckett, de faire déambuler des acteurs nus au milieu des détritus.
Pistes d’exploitation
- L’esthétique de l’épuisement (d’après Gilles Deleuze). Vision d’une vacuité primordiale, aux lisières du visuel, du verbal, de l’objet, du corporel.
- Un théâtre de la vision / la dimension métaphorique de la pièce
- Une via negativa de l’érotisme ou l’organisation d’un mystère : un érotisme expurgé de toute sensualité, nudité etc., et contrarié par l’image des déchets au premier plan
- Un effet d’attente (le noir) suivi d’une durée concentrée pour une expérience soma-esthétique (Richard Shusterman) décuplée (un kairos, un flash…)
- Une déconstruction de la situation de communication du théâtre à l’italienne
- Le corps en creux. Absence visuelle, mais présence auditive (le souffle) et trace de l’activité corporelle (les déchets)
- De l’intermède (théâtre, depuis le XVIe siècle) à l’Intermedia (Dick Higgins, 1965). A l’origine, le terme provient de l’adjectif italien intermedio, lequel sert à dénoter un état de transition. D’un usage courant dans le vocabulaire théâtral depuis le XVIe, il désigne une courte pièce, un divertissement lyrique, chorégraphique ou musical s’intercalant entre les actes d’une pièce de théâtre, d’un opéra ou les parties d’un spectacle. Dans l’histoire du théâtre européen, l’intermède s’est progressivement autonomisé jusqu’à donner naissance aux intermèdes-ballets et aux intermèdes-intrumentaux dans le théâtre du XVIIe, ainsi qu’aux intermèdes-bouffes (renommés opéras-bouffes) à partir du milieu du XVIIIe. Or, ce même terme a également servi à l’un des protagonistes et théoriciens de Fluxus, afin de désigner la qualité d’intermédialité des œuvres représentatives de Fluxus, notamment l’Event. En effet, l’une des caractéristiques principales de ces pièces, souvent actualisées de manière performative, tient à la quasi-impossibilité de pouvoir leur assigner un champ d’inscription générique précis (littérature, théâtre ou arts visuels). N’est-ce pas précisément le cas également de Breath, dont on peine à dire s’il s’agit d’une installation, d’une pièce de théâtre ou d’une vision intérieure ?
- La mise en scène de Daniela Thomas et l’interprétation du scénario-partition de Beckett : élongation du temps de 25 secondes à 67 secondes. Le choix d’une séance toutes les 20 minutes. La mise en espace et le dispositif global.
- Etude littéraire du texte de la pièce : Deux blocs textuels séparés visuellement par une barre horizontale. Bloc I : exposé du déroulement du processus découpé en 5 mouvements numérotés de 1 à 5, et dont les durées sont clairement énoncées. Bloc II : exposé des modalités de mise en scène. La syntaxe procède par juxtaposition, accumulation et énumération (phrases nominales), et relève davantage du style des didascalies ou des notes de travail / de la notation, que d’un dialogue, d’une action théâtrale à proprement parler. La fonction non-verbale domine ces indications scéniques. Le temps qu’il faut pour lire mentalement ces notes de mise en scène est d’environ 25 secondes, soit une durée identique à la réalisation scénique de la pièce. Lecture mentale et mise en scène se résorbent donc l’une sur l’autre, ajoutant au caractère génériquement indifférencié de cette pièce ? En effet, l’œuvre peut être envisagée tour à tour et simultanément comme un poème, un scénario, une pièce de théâtre ou une installation.
Bibliographie
- Le texte en version française (Souffle. Intermède) est paru dans Samuel Beckett, Comédie et actes divers, Paris, Minuit, 2009 (1970), p. 135-137.
- Gilles Deleuze, L’épuisé, in ‘Samuel Beckett, Quad et autres pièces pour la télévision’, Paris, Minuit, 1992
- Tom Bishop et Raymond Federman Samuel Beckett. Edition de l'Herne, Fayard / Les Cahiers de l’Herne, 1997
A Festa da Literatura e do Pensamento do Norte de África inicia-se a 22 de Junho com um debate em que participarão vários autores de blogs do Norte de África e Médio Oriente. Na impossibilidade de apresentar todos os autores e blogs fundamentais que são activistas fundamentais na cena política destas regiões vamos apresentar alguns.
YASSINE AYARI (Tunísia, 1982) é engenheiro de network e segurança informática e, também, uma ativista que tem lutado pela liberdade de expressão e de internet na Tunísia. Em 2009, candidatou-se para as legislativas, como candidata independente contra o RCD (Reunião Constitucional Democrática). Em 2010, organizou - Nhar Ala Ammar, uma manifestação contra a censura na internet. Em 2011, candidatou-se para as eleições da assembleia constituinte numa lista independente. Simultaneamente, organizou o movimento "Kelmethom" exigindo que o governo desse os devidos direitos aos mártires e aos feridos da Revolução. É ainda membro fundador do Centro da Tunísia para a Justiça Tradicional.
Yassine Ayari: «L'armée n'a jamais reçu l'ordre de tirer»
Selon le blogueur et cyberactiviste Yassine Ayari, l'armée n'a jamais tenu tête à l'ex-président Ben Ali et le général Rachid Ammar n'est pas un «héros».
Ce n’est pas la première fois que l’on entend parler du blogueur et cyberactiviste tunisien Yassine Ayari. Il fait partie des internautes engagés, ces «e-militants» qui ont fait plier le régime de Ben Ali en Tunisie, en janvier dernier.
Mais s'il refait parler de lui aujourd'hui, c'est à cause d'une vidéo postée sur Facebook le dimanche 17 juillet 2011. Relayée par le site de la radio Mosaïque FM mardi 19, la séquence secoue franchement le petit pays jusqu’aux plus hauts responsables, puisqu’il remet en cause le rôle de l’armée dans la victoire du peuple tunisien sur le régime autoritaire.
Celui qui se présentait comme un «ingénieur informaticien et cyberactiviste» devant les membres de l’ONU, au côté de l'ex-secrétaire d'Etat à la Jeunesse et aux Sports, Slim Amamou et du blogueur ByLasko, n’en est pas à son premier fait d’arme sur la Toile:
«J'étais même la source officielle de plusieurs agence de presse qui n'avaient personne en Tunisie», indique-t-il sur son blog.
Dans la vidéo qui a fait polémique, Ayari revient sur la réaction de l’armée face aux ordres que lui aurait donnés l’ex-président Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali de tirer sur les manifestants. Car d’après le blogueur, ces ordres n'auraient jamais existé, et, par conséquent le refus de l’armée d'ouvrir le feu sur la foule non plus. Il expose en détail sa démarche et fait la chronologie de sa version des faits sur son dernier post, intitulé:
«L’homme qui a dit non, et qui continuera à le dire: MOI»
Selon les faits connus et relayés par les observateurs du monde entier, le chef d’état-major des armées Rachid Ammar —promu après la révolution chef d’état-major interarmées— aurait refusé l'injonction hiérarchique en répondant fermement «non» aux ordres du président Ben Ali, qui lui aurait demandé de réprimer les manifestations et de tirer sur la foule si besoin.
Selon la version officielle, le refus catégorique et courageux du général Ammar lui avait valu d’être porté en héros par les Tunisiens, puisqu’il s’était opposé au dictateur et avait placé de fait l’armée du côté de la population.
La version des faits d'un fils de colonel
Yassine Ayari démonte aujourd'hui toute la construction de cet épisode de la révolte tunisienne en révélant qu'il a créé l'histoire de toutes pièces —histoire que les médias du monde entier se sont à l'époque empressés de relayer sans plus de vérifications, tant le courage du général des armées entretenait la dimension mythique de la révolution.
Il faut en préambule rappeler que le blogueur Yassine Ayari est le fils du colonel Tahar Ayari, tombé au combat le mercredi 18 mai dernier à 200 kilomètres de la ville de Rouhia, à l’ouest de Tunis, lors d’affrontements avec des mercenaires qui seraient rattachés à la branche d’al-Qaida au Maghreb islamique (Aqmi).
Le jeune homme, qui déclare avoir «passé 25 ans de (sa) vie dans des casernes ou des cités militaires», avait en janvier 2011 bel et bien accès à des informations militaires à usage strictement interne. Il affirme donc aujourd'hui: que «l'armée n'a jamais reçu d'ordre de tirer ou d'intervenir».
Mais le 7 janvier 2011, une semaine avant la chute de Ben Ali (surnommé «ZABA»), c'est Yassine Ayari qui aurait envoyé l'histoire cousue de fil blanc au site tunisien Nawaat, en précisant au site l’origine de ses sources. Voici, toujours selon lui, le message qu’il aurait adressé à la rédaction du site:
«Ce n'était pas un mensonge, c'était une ruse»
Yassine Ayari revient dans son blog sur ce qu'il qualifie de «ruse» et sur ses intentions, et semble avoir été dépassé par les événements:
Lorsqu’il a pris la décision de raconter cette histoire inventée, le blogueur n'imaginait pas consacrer le général, cette désormais «figure publique»:
«Rachid Ammar est un général, il n'a jamais dit non ou oui, il a juste exécuté les ordres. Dire qu'il n'a pas dit non, lui enlève l'héroïsme qu'il n'a jamais prétendu avoir, mais ne fait pas de lui non plus un minable».
Selon Ayari, Ben Ali n’entretenait pas de rapport avec l’armée, et ne se serait jamais adressé à elle pour le défendre contre son peuple:
Une question de timing
Reste que l’on s’interroge sur cette soudaine réapparition du cyberactiviste sur la scène publique. On aurait tendance à dire que, peut-être, le moment est mal choisi. En dehors du procès en cours de l’ex-président tunisien et de son clan, des enjeux économiques à la veille du ramadan ou de la crise politique, la Tunisie fait face à plusieurs conflits internes qui relancent les débats autour du processus de démocratisation:
Pourquoi dire ça maintenant [...] quand j'ai fait ce que j'ai fait, quand j'ai pris le risque, [...] je n'attendais rien en retour, absolument rien, et je voyais ça comme un devoir, [...] et je ne voulais pas l'amplifier pour avoir un poste (qu'on m'a proposé à deux reprises, gouvernement de Mohamed Ghannouchi), ni pour toute autre chose.»
Même si l’éclairage de Yassine Ayari renseigne sur une période restée floue dans l'esprit des Tunisiens, le blogueur laisse malgré tout planer les doutes quant à ces soudaines révélations, qui résonnent comme un besoin de reconnaissance et même, pour certains Tunisiens, comme un opportunisme déplacé.
«Pour résumer, je suis fier de ce que j'ai fait, si c'était à refaire, je le referais 1000 fois», conclut Ayari.
Gladys é a segunda peça encenada pela atriz, dramaturga e realizadora chilena Elisa Zulueta e foi estreada em julho de 2011, no Teatro del Puente, em Santiago do Chile.
Durante uma festa da família de Ander, no dia 6 de janeiro, que aguardava a chegada dos Reis Magos, Ian, seu filho mais velho, tem uma surpresa que irá transformar a paz desta festa de Natal. Há vinte anos que a irmã mais nova, Gladys, sofre de uma síndrome chamada de Asperger, tendo sido enviada para a América sem nenhuma razão específica ou bilhete de regresso, apesar das suas necesidades especiais, obrigando-a a desembaraçar-se sozinha. Estabelece-se em San Diego, dedicando-se à venda de t-shirts à porta do zoológico da cidade. Depois de algumas cartas enviadas, Gladys é localizada e levada de volta ao Chile para desenterrar segredos escondidos, após o exílio da sua família. Na Noite de Reis, Gladys involuntariamente vem a confrontar a sua história com a da família que tinha escolhido esquecer. Uma família aparentemente tranquila, sem problemas, mas sustentada por uma mentira de há vinte anos atrás que só agora se vem a descobrir. As verdadeiras razões para a partida de Gladys, esse segredo tão bem guardado e o olhar cego para a sua deficiência são algumas das questões que esta família terá de enfrentar. Durante a noite irá confrontar-se com aqueles que acreditam que se deve viver mantendo tudo em silêncio e com aqueles que precisam de saber quem são realmente. Duas maneiras de viver a vida: aqueles que precisam de enfrentar e viver e aqueles para os quais a ordem familiar consiste em evitar tudo o que causa sofrimento. «Gladys pretende voltar ao mais alto realismo, sem sensacionalismos cénicos, mas com as palavras e as ferramentas do ator, de volta para a verdade da vida real, dando ao público uma obra em que este se reveja, com a qual se emociona e possa refletir», disse Elisa Zulueta.
