PACAP 6
2023
Performing Arts Advanced Programme
Curated by Sofia Dias and Vítor Roriz
From February 16 to July 30, 2023
APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED
Open until June 20, 2022
Presentation
In each epoch there are voices coming from the future that demand urgent and necessary changes in the present. The voices that reach us today from the future seem to suffer from that almost mute hoarseness of someone who, for years, repeats the same thing to exhaustion. Despite the countless declinations and formulations, more or less prosaic and poetic, that message from the future comes in a question as simple as this: “if you already know what needs to be done, why don’t you do it?” And it is not the apparent aphonia that makes these voices inaudible, but the voluntary effort to minimize, ignore or postpone them. Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus, comes to a synthesis that seems to us linked to the root of this deafness “…practical consent and simulated ignorance, (…) makes us live with ideas that, if we actually felt them, should transform our whole lives.” This contradiction between ideas and practice is a fertile place of artistic questioning for what it reveals of the futility of the barriers between the desire for transformation and action or the difficulty of some communities in letting go of the “bone” of privilege, not only over other communities, but over nature itself.
Alongside the unpredictability of what is to come, the obsolescence of some of the tools of thought and action that characterize our society, the voices that announce it, the resistance to hear them, there is a future to be imagined and to which we are already contributing actively or passively. PACAP is one of these places of imagination and experimentation where the circumstances of the world are in dialogue with the specificities and subjectivities of each artist and, therefore, a special place for the debate of our contradictions. The work of each artist communicates more or less directly with the multiple temporalities that constitute reality, influencing and absorbing it, being part of it and sometimes distancing themselves to create parallel worlds that guarantee a critical perspective on what goes on around us. In the curious balance between the particular and the universal, we see how the approach to what is most singular and specific in each artist has the capacity, not infrequently, to affect more people than those who are part of their usual circle. And in these successive affections we contribute to the diversity of imaginaries about the body, identity and relationships.
The PACAP, as a provisional community, is also a place for the composition of relationships between each participant, for the articulation between the individual and the collective, for experimentation with other interaction dynamics that overlap with those of privilege and power, such as care, generosity, attention, collaboration.
The PACAP calls for intensity simply because it is a long-term community. This awareness of the end gives the added energy and urgency needed to spark unusual relationships and excesses that escape control but are indispensable to the imagination. We can use this energy of being together to provoke either a re-centering or a slight shift in our ways of thinking/doing.
For all this, we know that beyond the incredible group of artists we invite to be with us, what makes the PACAP experience unique is the constellation of participants that will integrate this Program. We would like, therefore, to invite 16 people with the desire and the pleasure of experimentation, to imagine with us multiple futures through projects whose starting points can be a simple quality of movement, an urgent and current concept, a banal idea, an intuition to name, an object out of place, or any other thing that provokes the necessary restlessness to create.
Structure
PACAP 6 is structured in five moments:
- Moment 1 – Temporary community, from 16 February to 10 March;
- Moment 2 – Laboratories, meetings and conversations, from March 13 to May 19;
- Moment 3 – Research and Creation, from May 22 to July 2;
- Moment 4 – Public Presentation, from the 3rd to the 23rd of July;
- Moment 5 – Reflection/feedback, production and finishing, from the 24th to the 29th of July.
Access the tabs to find out more information about each of these moments that make up the program’s structure.
MOMENT 1
Temporary Community
[from February 16 to March 10]
PACAP 6 is a temporary community with a fixed duration of six months. And as a community we need to find ways of coexistence where the combination of the heterogeneities of each artist translates into a greater capacity for action. The way we constitute ourselves as a community, although in large part random and involuntary, depends on particular attention to the composition of relationships so that no way of thinking/doing is disqualified and so that the diversity of perspectives and freedom of action is preserved. This will be an unstable composition in continuous mutation throughout the six months, but to which we dedicate ourselves in this first moment.
Residency
PACAP 6 begins with a six-day residency with Sofia and Vítor. In this residency, we will start by sharing the projects with which each artist applied to this program, as well as their references and personal practices. Simultaneously we will explore a series of methodologies of collaboration and collective reflection in a logic of reciprocity, care, and circulation of ideas.
Laboratory with Sofia & Vítor
During eight days, Sofia and Vítor will share some of their research tools, while accompanying each artist in the preparation and presentation of a short performance/rehearsal from the individual projects. To watch these performances/essays we will invite the circle of accomplices of PACAP. This will be the first and still intimate opening of this temporary community to the outside world, in a movement of expansion and aggregation.
Visits to local structures
In these first weeks we will visit several spaces of presenting, researching, and experimenting in the performance arts in Lisbon and can talk with the people who coordinate them. These visits are a first contribution for the mapping of Lisbon by each artist and intend to make easier their communication with these structures as potential partners.
MOMENT 2
Laboratories, meetings, and conversations
[from March 13 to May 19]
The second moment of PACAP will be a moment of critical incorporation of influences, practices, perspectives and wishes of a group of invitees in different types of encounters.
Research laboratories
We have tried to congregate an eclectic group of 8 artists who, during twelve weeks, will share their ways of research and creation in laboratories that will last from 5 to 10 days.
Confirmed artists: Alex Cassal, Christine de Smedt, João Fiadeiro, Ligia Lewis, Marcelo Evelin, Sheena McGrandles, Simone Aughterlony and Vera Mantero.
Creative response
The research labs will finish with a moment of creative/critical response from each participant. This response is intended to return a look or feedback to the guests to sediment the experience of the laboratory and put into dialogue elements of this research with the individual projects. The creative/critical response will be an opportunity to experiment with different presentation/performance formats.
Occasional Encounters / Crash Meetings
Among the eight research laboratories there will be occasional meetings with artists living or passing through Lisbon. The duration of these meetings varies from just a few hours to a day, and their format is open and flexible. Crash Meetings are an opportunity to include local artists and expand the temporary community of PACAP 6. Besides the curatorial choices, there is room for suggestions from participants of PACAP 6, to meet collective interests and needs.
Confirmed artists: François Chaignaud.
Conversations/seminars
For PACAP6 we invited a few people to broaden and deepen the reflection and discussion on the themes/subjects we want to address in this program, namely, creative appropriation, the tension between form/content, the relationship of artistic creation with ecology, identity, and activism, among others. There will be a particular focus on the concept of “bridging the divide” which could be freely understood as to “bringing together those who are divided”. Here representatives of two projects that operate according to this concept will share their experience, particularly in trying to bring together people from radically different political spectrums. The concept of “bridging the divide” along with the search for tools for dialogue with those we consider to be at odds with our convictions (not only political but also artistic) are a fundamental axis in the reflection and action of PACAP 6. In these conversations/seminars there will also be room for the suggestions of each participant.
Confirmed guests: Hanna Israel (Europe Talks).
Parallel Program
A program of shows and performances in different cultural spaces in Lisbon will be proposed to the group of participants of PACAP 6. Collective viewing makes it possible to create a common reflection plan not only on the shows, but also, by mirror effect, on the practices of each PACAP participant. It is easier to discuss and apply some concepts with a performance as a common reference. This parallel program takes place outside PACAP hours, and attendance is optional.
MOMENT 3
Research and Creation
[from May 22 to July 2]
For 6 weeks, each PACAP participant will work on individual creation projects. It is a period accompanied by Sofia and Vítor, by peers of PACAP and by local instigators chosen by each participant. A collaboration methodology will be proposed where each participant puts herself at the service of one or more projects so that this creative process is as closely monitored as possible and to take advantage of the main resource of this program: the pairs.
At the beginning of this process, a production plan will be made in collaboration with the Forum Dança team to adapt the existing resources or find others necessary for the realization of the project. In the fourth week of creation there will be an informal presentation and feedback session. During the last phase of the creative process, technical support will be guaranteed for the implementation of the project at Teatro do Bairro Alto and Culturgest.
Documentation
A documentation project of the creative process of each participant will be developed in collaboration with an artist and graphic designer. In a first phase, materials will be collected to create a personal archive. This archive will then serve as a field of experimentation for the creation of a documentary object that can dialogue directly with the “studio” work or go in an autonomous direction.
Marta Ramos will collaborate during this process.
MOMENT 4
Public Presentation
[from July 3 to 23]
The six-week creative process will culminate with public presentations of each participant’s projects at the Bairro Alto Theater (TBA) and Culturgest in Lisbon. One of the partners will mainly host projects that fit into the theatrical space while the other will host projects for unconventional spaces, namely outdoor space (gardens, street, open-air auditorium, etc.). This diversity of presentation contexts and the respective technical and logistical support of the teams of these cultural institutions seeks to meet the diversity and specificity of the proposals of each participant. Thus, the presentation formats depend exclusively on the creation process and the artistic intentions of each participant, which can either result in a show or performance or in a lecture, collective practice, installation, sound experience, guided tour, among many other options. PACAP’s public presentations are a moment of celebration, of expanding the relations of this temporary community and of collective reflection.
Sharing of Documentation
The period of the public presentation will also be the opportunity to share, in one of the spaces of the Bairro Alto Theater, a collective composition of the personal archives, showing the lines of force, specificities, approximations and distances between each project. This temporary composition serves both as an introduction to the projects and as a support point for later reflections and discussions.
Register
A complete photographic and video recording of each presentation will be made. These records will be given to the participants for the documentation and/or dissemination of the project.
MOMENT 5
Reflection/feedback, production, and finishing
[from July 24 to 29]
Reflection and feedback
Back to the intimacy of Forum Dança studios, this final moment of PACAP 6 is dedicated to reflection and feedback on the journey of each participant during the six months of the Program, with special focus on the creation process and the public presentation. In this reflection/feedback we will count on the presence of the instigators of each project.
Production support
Parallel to this reflection and feedback moment, each participant will have production and dissemination support. Depending on the stage each project is at, this support may consist of the elaboration of a production and/or dissemination dossier; research for and contact with institutional partners for the development and/or presentation of the project; application to residencies, support and grants for creation and/or circulation; clarifications about the Portuguese context of support to the arts and the status of the arts worker; among others.
Finishing Documentation
In this last moment of the Program, we are going to create a collective documentary object that tries to integrate and put into dialogue the elements of individual research, with the experience of different laboratories, occasional meetings, seminars and performances presented at Teatro do Bairro Alto and at Culturgest.
Temporary community
In the same way that at the beginning of the six months special attention is given to the formation of this temporary community, at this moment of the Program it will also be fundamental to take care of its end.
Informations
Target audience
Dancers, choreographers, performers and other artists with performance, body, and movement practices, older than 23 (with no upper age limit).
The program is open to applications from individual and duet artists.
Note
PACAP will have English and Portuguese as its working language, according to the Program participants.
A minimum knowledge of these languages is required, although this is not a determining criterion for the selection of candidates.
Guests
Invited artists and structures:
Moment 2 | Research Labs
- Alex Cassal
- Christine de Smedt
- João Fiadeiro
- Ligia Lewis
- Marcelo Evelin
- Sheena McGrandles
- Simone Aughterlony
- Vera Mantero
Moment 2 | Occasional Encounters/Crash Meetings
- François Chaignaud
and more to come
Moment 2 | Talks/Seminars
- Hanna Israel (Europe Talks)
and more to come
Moment 3/4
- Marta Ramos (documentation collab)
Selection Process
The selection process will be carried out by the curators of PACAP 6 and the direction of Forum Dança.
It will take place in 2 distinct Phases:
- Phase 1 – Applications;
- Phase 2 – Auditions.
Candidates must present a synopsis of a project to be developed within the scope of PACAP 6. This synopsis is nothing more than a starting point, an unfinished idea, an unsolved problem.
Phase 1
Applications
The submission of applications is done through an online form (further down this page) until June 20, 2022. Applications will be accepted in Portuguese, English or French.
Please Include the following documents:
- Motivation letter (max. 1 page A4 .pdf format) or video (link max. 3 minutes);
- CV with photo and short biographical note (max. 2 pages A4 .pdf – not to exceed 1MB);
- Candidate’s Portfolio Link with texts, images and links to videos (max. 10 pages A4, in .pdf format);
- Synopsis of a project to be developed within the scope of PACAP 6 (max. 1 page A4, pdf).
Candidates selected for an audition will be contacted by June 30, 2022 by email.
! IMPORTANT NOTE !
Please do not send links to download videos and photos.
Links sent must give direct access to the online visualization of the files (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.).
We only accept as downloadable files the CV, the motivation letter, and the project/synopsis.
Phase 2
Auditions
This second phase will only be for the candidates selected in the first phase.
- Audition Dates: 5 to 10 September 2022
- Place: Forum Dança, Lisbon, Portugal.
Communication of results: all selected candidates will be contacted by email until 30 September 2022.
Note
For foreign residents unable to travel to Lisbon, an audition and online interview will be held between September 5 and 10, 2022 at a time to be arranged with each candidate.
Tuition fees
- Registration: 120€.
- Payment in full: 1800€.
- Payment in two instalments: 950€ x 2.
Attention: The tuition fees are payable by each participant, even if they apply as an artist duo.
Please apply even if the tuition fee is an impediment.
If the amount of the tuition fee is an impediment, please attach a letter explaining your financial condition to your application.
Scholarships
Four scholarships will be awarded:
- 1 scholarship with 100% reduction of the total fee, exclusively addressed to artists from Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP);
- 1 scholarship with 75% reduction of the total fee, exclusively addressed to black artists living in Portugal;
- 2 scholarships with a reduction of 50% of the total fee, for 2 artists who can assure the simultaneous translation of the PACAP sessions for small groups.
Please apply even if the tuition fee is an impediment.
If the tuition fee is an impediment, please attach a letter explaining your financial condition to your application.
Schedules
Monday to Friday from 10 am to 5 pm.
This schedule is only indicative and may change.
A detailed program plan will be delivered to each PACAP 6 participant.
Application
Form
Applications are closed.
Curatorship
Sofia Dias & Vítor Roriz
Sofia Dias and Vítor Roriz are a duo of artists collaborating since 2006. The hybrid nature of their research, connected to a strong curiosity and need for experimentation, led them to the create several shows, performances, videos, podcasts and installations, crossing different contexts and blurring limits between artistic fields.
Their performances conceived for stage, mainly performed by the duo, summon up a particular choreographic language in relation to text and voice, as manifested in the pieces A gesture that is nothing but a threat 2011 (Prix Jardin d’Europe and 1ºAerowaves Spring Forward) and What does not happen 2018, both still touring. Besides their shows in duet, Sofia and Vítor have been also creating with and for other performers, invited by companies, such as Companhia Instável 2010, or Companhia Maior 2019; and in their own productions such as Satellites (2015), Escala (2021) or their first piece for children, Sons Mentirosos Misteriosos 2020 [Misterious Lying Sounds].
With approximately 30 projects conceived over the last 16 years, Sofia and Vítor spread their research to other mediums and contexts. As in the radio piece De olhos fechados [With eyes closed] for OSSO (2021), the video work Contorno [Contour] created for the third edition of Traça (2020), the sound piece Gas pier in Lisbon by Sound (2014), or in the series of performances for non-conventional spaces presented since 2011, Arremesso. A series that counts already with nine different performances that search for reactivating and re-signifying the archive of gestures, movements, texts, musics, soundscapes, voices and “states of presence” they have been collecting throughout their collaboration.
Although the artistic creation is a mark in the path of this duo, their first collaboration, in 2006, was Project MOLA – Movimento latente – a project of informal artistic education for children and adults from different social and economic backgrounds that kept active till 2010. The duo’s educational activity continued in the professional context after an invitation by Companhia Instável in Porto to teach a workshop. Since then, Sofia and Vítor regularly run workshops and classes in Portugal and abroad, in the context of the festivals where they present their works, or in formal and informal institutions of education/training/research, like C.e.m. – Centro em movimento (Lisbon), La Place de la Danse CDCN (Toulouse) and ESAD (Caldas da Raínha). Since 2010 they keep a close relationship with Fórum Dança (Lisboa), where they were invited to make the curatorship of the second edition of PACAP – Advanced Program of Creation in Performing Arts (2018/19) and by whom they were challenged for the curatorship of the 6th edition of the same Program in 2023.
The growing interest for forms of sharing and reflection among pears, lead them to develop and take part, since 2012, of various residencies and meetings between artists, highlights include AWARE in the context of Alkantara Festival. Sofia and Vítor are usually requested for “feedback sessions” and “outside view” for multiple performative arts’ projects.
As a duo, they were invited to collaborate with several artists, such as Catarina Dias (Potlach), Lilia Mestre (Beyond Mary and Joseph), Lara Torres (An impossible wardrobe for the invisible), Gonçalo Waddington and Carla Maciel (At most mere minimum), Marco Martins and Clara Andermatt (Durações de um Minuto), Marco Martins (Two maybe more), Mark Tompkins (improvisation based on In C), Tim Etchells (The exhibition of a film), Felipe Hirsch (Opera Orphée). They have been collaborating regularly with Tiago Rodrigues as performers in Antony and Cleopatra 2014 (still on tour in its Portuguese, French and English versions) and Sopro 2017. In 2020 they did movement assistance for the piece Catarina e a beleza de matar fascistas, by the same author.
Since the beginning of their collaboration they are supported by many different structures: O Espaço do Tempo, being associate artists between 2009 and 2016, the former Bomba Suicida in the period from 2006 to 2009 and Materiais Diversos that, between 2012 and 2016 took charge of the production, diffusion and administration of all artistic activity of the duo. They can not fail to mention Alkantara and Devir/CAPA for the support given to their creative work. They have collaborated with the structures of production and cultural diffusion SUMO and Something Great and currently they rely with the production of Agência 25.
Along these years they have enjoyed the significant support of the European networks Looping, TRANSFER, Aerowaves, Open Latitudes, Modul Dance, ONDA and Départs.
In 2020, they’ve developed the project Infiltration at Teatro do Bairro Alto that concluded with the piece Escala.
In 2022 they were Featured Artists at GUIDance Festival.
In 2022/2023 Sofia and Vítor will be “Novos Inquilinos” [New tenants] at Teatro Viriato in Viseu.
Their next piece, NEVERODDOREVEN, in collaboration with Filiz Sizanli and Mustafa Kaplan will premiere in November at Alkantara Festival and will be presented in Viseu, Paris and Porto.
Sofia Dias & Vítor Roriz are associate members of REDE – Associação de Estruturas para a Dança Contemporânea [Contemporary Dance Structure’s Association].
More info at www.sofiadiasvitorroriz.com
Participants
Bobby Brim (FR), Camilla Morello (IT), Connor Scott (UK), Estrellx Supernova (US), Lorea Burge (UK/ES), Lucas Damiani (UY), María Ibarretxe del Val (ES), Marcelo de Castro Pereira (BR), Mariana Catalina Iris (UY), Rafaela Santos (PT), Silvana Ivaldi (PT), Tarlie Lumby (UK), Vanessa Lonau (DE) e Victor Lattaque (FR).
PACAP 6 activities
Top banner image credit © Joana Linda
Coproducers and Support
Coproducers PACAP 6: Teatro do Bairro Alto and Culturgest
Support PACAP 6: Casa da Dança – Almada, Fundação GDA, O Rumo do Fumo, Alkantara, OPART | Estúdios Victor Córdon, O Espaço do Tempo, Piscina.
