Teresa Arcanjo / Grua Crua

Trapped, a mother retraces the steps that led her here, to this place she has no alternative but to play herself, splitting up into many, infinite, to better understand herself in her hurt whole. Acutely aware of both her personal history, which brings her to reflect herself in the words of her father that shaped and still shape a ruthless worldview, and of History, where in distant events such as the siege of Vienna in 1683 may lie the roots of the present pain.
"Daughter of both sides”, this mother meditates with Teutonic coldness, but also with Turkish lyricism, a spectator of herself, equally distant from anguish and amusing absurd, listening to her tale being told as if it were music: in the poetic present. Until the music comes to a halt and there’s nothing left but her. In silence. — Teresa Arcanjo


Teresa Arcanjo is an actress and theatre director. She started her training at ESMAE – Higher School of Music and Performing Arts in 2004, and her professional career in 2008 directed by Manuel Tur. She has since worked under Cristina Carvalhal, Lautaro Vilo, Mathew Lenton, Simão do Vale Africano, Nuno Carinhas, Nuno M. Cardoso, Ricardo Alves, Sara Barros Leitão and Pedro Galiza, among others. Aside from working in theatre on a regular basis, she is a trainer, dubbing artist and broadcaster.

Grua Crua is an artistic intervention, experimentation, creation, research, discussion and production platform established in 2009. It also aims at being a complex-free, intervening cultural agent in the city of Porto, hosting, programming, occupying places, discussing policies and solutions, and exploring synergies through a live and ongoing dialogue with the growing number of platforms sharing these same concerns.