A Menor Língua do Mundo

By 2100 the world may have lost half of its languages: of the 7,000 currently spoken languages, it is expected that 50% will not survive until the end of the century. On the road to extinction, they take with them stories, knowledge, identities and differences. In Portugal, the languages under threat are the minderico, ladino, barranquenho and mirandês, among others. Languages which are restricted to small regions and localities, spoken by an increasingly smaller number of people. Languages which, even so, also represent the Portuguese culture. A Menor Língua do Mundo is a project which proposes itself as a space for conversation, organizing creative meetings between a multidisciplinary group of artists and groups of speakers of minderico, mirandês and barranquenho. The aim here is not to record something that was, but the exploration of possible things to come; less a museum and more of a fair. We want to research what these languages can and want to say today. And to consider up to what point the extinction is or not inevitable. We imagined a troupe that would travel through an extinct land (taking advantage of the mobilizing and ironic potential of apocalyptic fantasies) stubbornly presenting a variety show using that which they gathered during their journey: jokes and songs, burlesque choreographies and epic poems, erudite references and trained animals. A caravan of wonders travelling through the end of the world.

PREMIERE
27 September 2019 – 28 September 2019
Materiais Diversos Festival, Minde, PT