Joana Providência

Returning to the stories of love and affection, Joana Providência now wishes to reflect upon what binds and builds a family. The Famílias imaginárias [Imaginary families] performance seeks to closely work with a group of families from Porto throughout the 2020/2021 season, exploring the ties that unite them, but also establishing new relations based on proximity and care. A family is made of different ties and knots, tangled up in different ways, resulting in fabrics of all shapes and sizes. Famílias imaginárias will not only enable us to look at already established families, but also to form new families: one can borrow a grandmother from the group or try out brothers on stage. Uncles, fathers, mothers, grandparents, cousins, and so on—every family tie you can imagine can be made up in this project. Joana Providência also invited families whose members include performing arts professionals for Famílias imaginárias, and they’ll work continuously with the community, jointly weaving the web of stories and memories that will result in this performance, which is performed and experienced by everyone as a strange family that is made up during the process.


JOANA PROVIDÊNCIA completed her studies at the Lisbon School of Dance in 1989. She’s been one of the artistic directors at ACE – School of Arts/Teatro do Bolhão since its foundation in 2002. Among her many creations as a choreographer stand out Território [Territory], co-produced by Teatro do Bolhão, Culturgest and Comédias do Minho and nominated for the SPA – Portuguese Authors Society Best Dance Choreography Award in 2013, and Mecanismos [Mechanisms], which won the Sete d’Ouro New Talent Award.