Vasco Mendonça & Gonçalo M. Tavares

What if the forest isn’t exactly what it seems? Perhaps those who seem kind are only silly. And perhaps those who seem dangerous aren’t that dangerous after all. Greedy and dishonest: that’s how the wolf is presented to us in the fairy tales we’re told. But what if the wolf is just misunderstood? What if we take his point of view? That incident with Little Red Riding Hood, that scene on the doorstep of the little pigs: nothing is as simple as we think. For a number of misunderstandings, prejudices, bad luck and bizarre coincidences, the wolf has been portrayed as the villain. It is high time we restore his honour. By radically reversing the existing perspective on the wolf’s role, this performance opens a space for the need for empathy and tolerance in our present-day society. — Vasco Mendonça


Vasco Mendonça´s music has been widely performed internationally by groups such as the Asko|Schoenberg Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Axiom Ensemble, Remix Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), São Paulo Symphony [OSESP], Gulbenkian Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfonica Casa da Música and Drumming GP. Mendonça has been commissioned works and featured in major music festivals such as Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh Music, Verbier Festival, Musica Nova Helsinki, Musica Strasbourg, November Music, Gaudeamus Music Week and Morelia Music Festival, and in venues such as the Philharmonie de Paris, Lincoln Center, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, La Monnaie, Kaaitheater, Grand Théâtre du Luxembourg, Elbphilharmonie, Centro Cultural Del Bosque, National Sawdust, Concertgebouw Brugge, Kölner Philharmonie, de Singel, Mousonturm Frankfurt, Casa da Música and Gulbenkian Foundation. His interest in composing for the stage has led him to collaborate with some of the most cutting-edge music-theatre companies in Europe, such as Music Theatre Wales, Muziektheater Transparant and LOD Muziektheater, and with directors such as Katie Mitchell, Michael McCarthy and Luis Miguel Cintra. His music is published by Editions Alphonse Leduc (Wise Music Classical) and has been recorded by labels Naxos and Classic Concert Records. Mendonça studied with Klaas de Vries and George Benjamin, and his distinctions include the Lopes Graça Composition Award, ROLEX Mentor and Protegé Arts Initiative (with Kaija Saariaho), Composer-in-Residence at Casa da Música, several artistic grants from the Ministry of Culture and representing Portugal at UNESCO’s International Rostrum of Composers.

Inne Goris graduated from the Toneelacademie Maastricht in 1997, with the performance Niet in staat tot slechte dingen. After working as an educational assistant at BRONKS, a Brussels production house for children’s and youth theatre, and as a dramaturge at Ultima Vez, the company of Wim Vandekeybus, Goris finally founded her own company ZEVEN in 2001. In that year, under the wings of BRONKS, she made her debut with the family performance Zeven, after which multiple performances for children and families followed. Since 2009, Goris has created several productions under the wings of LOD muziektheater, a Ghent production house for opera and music theatre. In her creations and direction, Goris’ goal is to search for the remnants of a greater whole, and to render visible what is hidden. This results in quirky performances that balance on the delicate boundaries between art, theatre and dance.

Gonçalo M. Tavares is a Portuguese writer. He published his first work in 2001 and since then has been awarded several important prizes. Considered the best Portuguese writer of his generation and one of the most influential writers in Europe, his books have been published in more than 50 countries. Tavares studied Physics and Art and teaches Epistemology at the Technical University of Lisbon. His highly original personal literary world has received enormous praise from the critics. Among his prolific output Tavares has surprised his readers with the variety of books he has published since 2001 and has been awarded an impressive amount of national and international literary prizes in a very short time including the José Saramago Prize for young writers under 35, Prémio Portugal Telecom de Literatura em Língua Portuguesa, the LER/ Millennium Prize, the renowned Grande Prémio da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores, as well as the prestigious Prémio Literário Fernando Namora. His novel Learning to Pray in the Age of Technique received the prestigious Prize of the Best Foreign Book 2010 in France and won the Special Price of the Jury of the Grand Prix Littéraire du Web Cultura 2010. Tavares’ 2005 novel Jerusalem is included in the European edition of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die - a guide to the most important novels of all time. Portuguese writer and Nobel laureate José Saramago had this to say about Tavares: “It would not be an exaggeration to say — with all due respect to the young Portuguese novelists of today — that there is a literary field before Gonçalo M. Tavares, and one after".