“Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveller. What we see isn't what we see but what we are.” Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
This performance uses an imagery inspired by a somewhat obscure chapter of the life of Fernando Pessoa, Portugal’s leading literary figure, mostly renowned with "The Book of Disquiet": his arrival as a young man in Durban, South Africa in 1896 where he spent the first years of his life. ZULULUZU is a neologism that intends to connect two common places: an idea of Portugal (Luzu) and one of South Africa (Zulu).
Teatro Praga takes advantage of the cooperation between two cultural clichés to attack a cliché of the theatrical institution: the black box.
In ZULULUZU the theatre building is used as a scape-goat for a discourse against all discourses, which claims a space for those who are left out, the forgotten stories and characters, the victims of “the way things are”, those who become invisible in front of a black wall. The performance takes hold of a post-structuralist, feminist and gender theory vocabulary and applies it to its own life. ZULULUZU is not a performance against the black box, it is just recognizing the building, demanding visibility for its architecture and normativity, and ultimately for ZULULUZU, a performance on the life and work of Fernando Pessoa.
ZULULUZU announces the end of the “apartheid” of ideas, genres and forms - a strange declaration of queerism, a manifesto in favour of an immaterial object, a performance that does not rest in anyone’s memory and where the exoticism gives way to an endoticism. If “I have in me all the dreams of the world”, as Pessoa wrote, ZULULUZU wants the whole world and its infinity.
“And I won’t swallow you, black box, don’t even think about it, I am not a disciplinary instrument of a person’s identity, I refuse to construct other people’s subjectivity, I refuse to constraint their possibilities of existence by submitting this space to the prison of definitions - i.e. theatre is…, man is…, a cow is… you’re the cow! I reject the visibility you want to offer me, I do not want you as a frame, I don’t need a black background with no perspective. I don’t want to be a model, an example. I do not need to be exposed, I don’t want to be material and concrete, I need my great grandpa, who was black, I need myself, I need to leave, that’s what I need, I need to get out and come in afterwards, I AM A DRAMA IN PERSON in caps!”
/ CREDITS
Artistic direction and text Pedro Zegre Penim, José Maria Vieira Mendes and André e. Teodósio | With André e. Teodósio, Cláudia Jardim, Diogo Bento, Jenny Larrue, Joana Barrios, Maryne Lanaro, Gonçalo Pereira Valves, Pedro Zegre Penim | Stage design João Pedro Vale & Nuno Alexandre Ferreira | Costumes Joana Barrios | Master seamstress Rosário Balbi | Original music Xinobi | Light design Daniel Worm d’Assumpção | Sound design Sérgio Henriques | Teatro Praga producer Bruno Reis | Executive producer Sara Garrinhas / Carolina Caramelo | Teatro Praga communication Clara Antunes
Co-produced by Teatro Praga, São Luiz Teatro Municipal (Lisbon), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), ÍKSV - Ístanbul Tiyatro Festivali (Istanbul), Teatro Municipal do Porto - Rivoli (Porto), Casa Fernando Pessoa (Lisbon), Institut Français au Portugal |Support to the international tour Camões-Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua | Support to the artistic residency Pólo Cultural das Gaivotas Boavista, O Espaço do Tempo
Acknowledgments Aida Tavares, Alexandra Pinho, Alex D’Alva Teixeira, Ana Brito, Ana Carina Paulino, Ana Lúcia Cruz, André Godinho, António Mega Ferreira, António Gouveia, Aviva Obst, Calixto Neto, Carlos Pinto, Catarina Homem Marques, Chloé Siganos, Christophe Lemaire, Clara Riso, Companhia Nacional de Bailado, Cristina Correia, Cristina Piedade, Damaris Muga, Diana Lopes, Ela, Elisabete Azevedo, Giftor Neville, James Muriuki, Joana Gomes Cardoso, João Macdonald, Jody Paulsen, Maria João Sigalho, Mariana Sá Nogueira, Mark Lowen, Marta Neves, Mónica Calle, Nelson André / Traços Interiores, Patrícia Azevedo, Patrícia da Silva, Paula Nascimento, Paulo André, Paula Sá Nogueira, Paulo Pascoal, Pedro Rapoula, Rosário Balbi, Rui Horta, Rui Tavares, Sébastien Capouet, Selin Gerit, Simore, Sónia Baptista, Syowia Kyambi, Teatro Cão Solteiro, Tiago Bartolomeu Costa, Tiago Coelho, and an infinite thank you to our co-producers, supporters, theatre directors and all creators who’ve taken part of this process, our families, Richard Zenith, João dos Santos Martins, and Luísa Taveira.
Duration 75min | Over 12 | Performance spoken in Portuguese, Zulu, English, French, German and Spanish, subtitled in English/French/Portuguese according to the country where it is presented
/ CALENDAR
7th MAY 2016 > Open rehearsal @ Teatro Curvo Semedo/O Espaço do Tempo, Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal
19th and 20th MAY 2016 | World première @ ?KSV – Ístanbul Tiyatro Festivali, Istanbul, Turkey
31st MAY to 4th JUNE 2016 | French première @ Chantiers d’Europe/Théâtre de la Ville, Théàtre des Abbesses, Paris, France
15th to 25th SEPTEMBER 2016 | Portuguese première @ São Luiz Teatro Municipal, Lisbon, Portugal
7th to 8th OCTOBER 2016 @ Teatro Municipal do Porto – Rivoli, Porto, Portugal
