PACAP #06

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.