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.
You walk into the theatre room. In the middle of it you see a small building, like an industrial chimney. It stands there as if simply transferred from its original location into the theatre room. It throws smoke from the top, filling the space with a thick slow movement. Looking closely, you realise there are doors on the walls of the building. You open a door and you find yourself in a small cabin inside the building. You see a chair and you sit down. A set of headphones hangs from the wall, you put them on. In front of you, a small glass window allows you to look inside another room. It is an empty white room, like a living room in an empty apartment in the suburbs. It seems totally disconnected from the industrial building you just walked into. On the floor of the white room, you notice three bodies. At first, they seem completely still. But after a while you realise that their flesh is moving. As if they could no longer move through their bone structure but only their meat, their organs…
Diversos