Re:Stage

The programme for the 2020/2021 season displays the disciplinary and aesthetic diversity that characterises TMP. Some of what we expected to premiere this season was postponed for 2021/2022. The inability to benefit from rehearsal venues, artistic residencies and technical residencies led to several new creations never even making it to the stage, thus postponing premieres originally scheduled for the second semester of 2020. We therefore decided to work out a programme that will bring back on stage key pieces in the history of dance—pieces that many will possibly know, but haven’t watched live. It is our belief that knowing the origins of an artistic discipline through its most iconic titles will help to understand the path it travelled up to present time. What is seen today as a historical landmark was the most contemporary there was at the time it was created; and its contemporaneity and artistic appeal was as powerful decades ago as it is now. We shall thereby present the National Ballet of Portugal and the programme “Dançar em Tempo de Guerra” [Dancing During Wartime], which brings together two pieces from the 1930s that mirror the concerns of their authors about the warlike environment of the time: A mesa verde (1932), by Kurt Jooss, and Chronicle (1936), by Martha Graham. We will also host CCN – Ballet de Lorraine and rediscover two of the most iconic works by American modern dance pioneer Merce Cunningham: RainForest (1968), featuring the installation Silver Clouds, by Andy Warhol, as scenery, and Sounddance (1975). Twenty years after its premiere in Paris, Jérôme Bel restages The show must go on (2001) with performers from Porto and Lisbon. This seminal piece speculates on the mechanisms of performances and the connective mirror they are able to establish between dancers and spectators. We will also dedicate a focus programme to Cape Verdean choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas that includes her latest creation, Mal – Embriaguez Divina [Evil – Divine Inebriation], and the restaging of her piece: Guintche (2010).