Poetry and Savagery by Vera Mantero, 1998
Premiered in 1998 as part of Festival Mergulho no Futuro, in the Small Auditorium of Centro Cultural de Belém, Poetry and Savagery is one of Vera Mantero's most emblematic creations. The piece stems from amazement at the human condition – the ability to create the sublime alongside the brutal – and asserts itself as a search for freedom through the body. A body stripped of codes, open to the unknown, moving with the naivety of a primordial being, discovering itself, others and the world. On stage, a group of performers inhabit a space of sensitive transgression, proposing a ‘positive savagery’: a state of instinctive listening, where new ways of existing and communicating are experienced, beyond words. The physical proximity to the audience invites a more direct and visceral involvement. ‘We are people trapped in our bodies. We are sedentary, cerebral, we communicate mainly through words,’ says Mantero. This play is, above all, an invitation to liberation.
In 2026, the piece returns to the stage where it premiered, at the CCB's Small Auditorium, featuring some of the original cast members, joined by a few new creators and collaborators.
Freedom. Immanence.
(from where did I get this idea of freedom?)
Freedom as availability to vibrations, availability to hear them and availability to accomplish them in some way. To hear these vibrations inside us, to embrace them, opens an enormous field of possibilities, creates the energy to construct, gives a sense of meaning, meaning to do things, or energy itself creates the meaning.
I like this idea, energy itself creates the meaning.
I think that freedom is what makes it possible to enter immanence.
Probably without freedom it could not be entered.
It must be why I am always falling back on the idea of abandonment, the idea of abandonment and openness and all the related items.
Vera Mantero
Credits
Artistic Direction
Vera Mantero
Performance and co-creation
Emily da Silva (Margarida Mestre in the original creation)
Frans Poelstra
Joana Azuru (Ana Sofia Gonçalves in the original creation)
Luís Guerra (Christian Rizzo in the original creation)
Nuno Bizarro
Vera Mantero
Artistic Assistance
Pietro Romani
(Lília Mestre in the original creation)
Visual Design
Sara Leme
(Nadia Lauro in the original creation)
Costumes
Sara Leme
(Nadia Lauro and the entire team in the original creation)
Technical Direction
Hugo Coelho - Aldeia da Luz
Lighting
Miguel Carvalho
(Cathy Olive in the original creation)
Props and Stage Manager
Beatriz Marques Dias
(Marta Rego in the original creation)
Soundtrack
Christian Rizzo
Sound
Rui Dâmaso
Executive Production
João Albano, Patrícia Teixeira / O Rumo do Fumo
(EIRA / Delphine Goater in the original creation)
Co-producers
Instituto Português de Artes e Espectáculos, Centro Cultural de Belém, Mergulho no Futuro-Expo 98, EIRA
Support
Centa, Casa de Mateus
Timeline
19 - 23 September 2001, Festival International de Nouvelle Danse, Montreal, Canada
28 - 30 May 2001, Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, France
28 October 2000, Teatro Carlos Gomes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Miguel Pereira took part in this piece in place of Christian Rizzo)
26 October 2000,Teatro SESC Pompéia, São Paulo, Brazil (Miguel Pereira took part in this piece in place of Christian Rizzo)
2 - 3 July 2000, Festival Montpellier Danse, Montpellier, France
11 - 12 February 2000, Festival Danse(s) à Brest, Brest, Le Quartz, France
28 - 29 October 1999, Moving Mime Festival, Tilburg, Netherlands
16 October 1999, Dietheater, Vienna, Austria
13 September 1999, La Bâtie – Festival de Genéve, Geneva, Switzerland
18 - 19 August 1999, Internationales Tanzfest Berlin, TanzWerkstatt Berlin, Berlin, Germany
26 - 27 March 1999 , Month of March - Month of Vera, Culturgest, Lisbon, Portugal
7 May 1999, Kunst – und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik, Bonn, Germany
1998, Balleteatro, Porto, Portugal
Premiere - 21 - 22 August 1998, Festival Mergulho do Futuro, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, Portugal