The Materiais Diversos Festival promotes the meeting of different audiences and imaginaries around the arts (dance, theatre, music and performance) with thought, questioning actuality and fostering cultural participation as a condition for citizenship. Born in Minde, in 2009, it spread to Alcanena and Cartaxo (in 2013) and became one of the most representative projects for programming outside the large centres in Portugal, attempting to think and act from the places it originates. It had been occurring annually until 2017 and became a biannual event starting with its 10th edition in 2019.
From the 5th to the 15th of October 2023, the Festival Materiais Diversos will be in Alcanena and Minde with a program of dance, theater and music shows, installations and conversations. Slowing down and making people, places and processes visible are the mottos of the 12th edition of the festival.
Materiais Diversos is a non-profit cultural association created in 2003 with the mission of promoting artistic research and creation, as well as sensitising different audiences to the performing arts, especially dance.
This mission takes the form of support for various artists and projects, the Materiais Diversos Festival and an Audience Development Programme in the municipalities of Alcanena.
Materiais Diversos is recognised nationally and internationally for its role in supporting the creation and dissemination of artists.
Since 2009, the Materiais Diversos Festival has played a leading role in the organisation’s activity, reinforcing its role as a platform for Portuguese creators and also making it one of the pioneers in Portugal of the movement to enhance and develop culture outside the major urban centres.
Since 2017, Materiais Diversos has redesigned its project, seeking to articulate its various axes and territories of action and involving different actors – artists, producers, programmers, audiences and organisations – around common objectives and actions. Co-habitating, collaborating, sharing and co-creating are the gestures that guide this cycle and sustain an artistic programme that dialogues with other dimensions of human life and contemporaneity.
Materiais Diversos is an independent professional organisation funded by the Ministry of Culture/Directorate-General for the Arts. It is a member of REDE – Associação de Estruturas para a Dança Contemporânea, the informal network BeMyGuest – Network for Emerging Practices, the working group Periferias Centrais and was a member of the international co-operation project MORE THAN THIS (2018-2020).
In 2017 and 2019, the Materiais Diversos Festival received the EFFE label from the European Festivals Association / European Commission, in recognition of its artistic quality and relevance.
Diversos