Marco Martins / Arena Ensemble

Marco Martins was born in Lisbon in 1972. His artistic works cover cinema, visual arts and theatre. His films have been presented and awarded at major international festivals (Cannes, Venice and Rotterdam). In 2007, he founded Arena Ensemble with Beatriz Batarda, and he has since presented performances on a regular basis on the main stages at home, and several pieces internationally, many of which with specific communities and involving both professional artists and non-actors.

Arena Ensemble is a platform to develop artistic projects. Founded in 2007, it has always been interested in risk and experimentation in the search for new theatrical and performing practices, and it is based on the crossing of several artistic genres. The work of Marco Martins, Arena’s artistic director, increasingly emerges from meeting specific, peripheral communities with which he carries out long creation processes that challenge a production economy and in which the lives and stories of their performers (non-actors) are the dramaturgical foundation of the performances. Far from a so-called documentary theatre, each project entails new research methods, resorting to cross-disciplinary practices and the setting up of new teams, so as to meet their specific nature. “Arena” stands for a struggle, confrontation and action space that defies specific techniques or prevailing languages. The work carried out involves investing in a laboratorial practice that combines references and crosses theatre, dance, visual arts and performance by collaborating with several artists, who are key in this dynamic.