Editorial

The invisible work of what is not a festival

materiais adversos weekend is not a festival. Nor does it aim to be a small festival between editions of festival materiais diversos, which will return in October 2027. It is something else.

It is a gathering that brings an artistic occupation to a close: ten days during which artists live, research, walk, talk, experiment and work in Minde and Alcanena. If the festival is the moment when the territory becomes a stage, fim de semana materiais adversos is an exercise in inhabiting that territory. Before presenting, artists take up residence. Before sharing their work, they stay. Before the performance, they build relationships with those who already live there and with those who come from elsewhere and look on with curiosity and wonder. Bibi Dória, Connor Scott, Grilo & Inês Campos, Luísa Saraiva, Marga Alfeirão, Miguel Bonneville & Sofia Dinger, Natacha Campos, Pedro Barreiro and Reina da Mar inhabit territories and imaginations.

Between festivals, there is a period of time that rarely comes into view. A time for research, trial and error, conversation and waiting. A time when there is no performance yet, but the work is already underway. A time when creation happens before it can be named. This weekend was born precisely from the desire to make that time more visible.

Over three days, artists open up their creative processes to the public while these are still taking shape. They do not present finished answers; they share questions, methods, possibilities and vulnerabilities. We believe that creation does not begin with the premiere or end with the final performance. Research is also a form of production. Thinking is also work. Experimenting is also creating. And programming is about building relationships. It means accompanying artists over time, inviting them to return, building trust, forging new connections and bringing together layers of people, places and experiences. More than selecting works, we are interested in building a context in which artists, communities, institutions and audiences remain in dialogue. It is this invisible work, so often slow and so often absent from narratives about programming, that underpins what we later recognise as a programme.

For this reason, and in partnership with Cine-Teatro São Pedro, we bring the only finished work of the weekend to two squares in Minde and Alcanena: Fantasie minor, by Marco da Silva Ferreira, a renowned choreographer whose career is closely connected to Materiais Diversos. A vibrant and deeply political work that transforms the energy of clubbing and urban dance into a space for encounter, resistance and collective creation. Through its pulse, virtuosity and intimacy, the performance asserts the body as a territory of freedom.

For the same reason, this weekend is not organised around one main event surrounded by parallel activities. Instead, it is built through layers that nourish one another. The Audience Club, led by Nuno Preto; the Matéria Viva group, part of our Training and Capacity-Building Programme in Performing Arts: Practices, Politics and Ecologies of Making; the FUTURΛ seminar with Anne Kerzerho and Mawena Yehouessi; the residencies, public sharings and the presence of national and international programmers all intersect continuously, forming a temporary community in which different working rhythms coexist. Materiais Diversos’ Accompanied Artists, Marga Alfeirão, Piny and Gaya de Medeiros, are also part of this weekend, reinforcing a logic of continuity and ongoing artistic support that lies at the heart of Materiais Diversos’ work.

Each artist inhabits Minde and Alcanena, gets to know people, associations and local groups, explores the landscape and allows themselves to be transformed by the context, while also transforming it. Places and people cease to be a backdrop and become living material for creation. These relationships also develop beyond working hours: around the table, over a shared meal, on a walk, in a conversation after a performance or simply in the time spent together. At a moment when spaces for coming together seem increasingly rare, we want to make room for shared time. We believe that real impact often happens far from the stage lights: in a residency that has yet to discover what it will become, in a future collaboration or when an artist returns because they have found a place here where they can continue their research. It is this ecology of continuity, trust and conviviality that we seek to build.

This weekend is only possible thanks to the trust of the artists, our extraordinary team, local associations and groups, partner organisations, patrons and funding bodies who believe that researching, experimenting and building relationships are fundamental ways of shaping the future. Special thanks go to the Municipality of Alcanena for its vision and long-term commitment to this project, recognising and respecting the autonomy of Materiais Diversos as an independent cultural organisation. And to all our new and longstanding partners who, through different forms of support, continue to make this project possible.

Cristina Planas Leitão
Artistic Director of Materiais Diversos