Ela deu-me eu dela recebi

“Ela deu-me eu dela recebi” centres on five generations of women in Clara Amaral’s family and focuses on her grandmother, Maria Joana Cruz dos Santos, who couldn’t read or write. What could be understood as a detail in a family, turns out to be a socio-cultural context that many women in Portugal had to face until the reform of the education system in 1950, which changed the situation of exclusion of women due to their gender and social status.

There’s a book on the table. In a series of movements, Clara Amaral navigates the book and a series of relatives, creating a narrative that multiplies as she goes along.

“Ela deu-me eu dela recebi” is part of the recreation and rewriting in Portuguese of the performance “She gave it to me, I got it from her”, which premiered at the Alkantara Festival in 2021.

She gave me and I received from her
a poem choreographed by her hands and her voice
her voice reading aloud
the book
turned into a guide
turned into a performance
turned into an archive
the permanence of her voice in the book
in the book
the presence and absence of their names

Ela deu-me eu dela recebi
is a book and a choreography, read aloud and handled by an interpreter, for 6 people.