Winning project of Sementeira, the New Creations Grant for Alentejo, an initiative promoted by Antípoda A.C., in co-production with O Espaço do Tempo, Alma d’Arame, Pó de Vir a Ser and CAE Portalegre, in parntership with Um Colectivo e with the Municipalities of Viana do Alentejo, Mértola and Portalegre.

Espantos emerges from a process of listening within small communities in the Alentejo region, where population ageing and territorial depopulation have become a source of artistic reflection.

Through shared memories, simple and deeply human stories, the figure of an elderly couple living in isolation on a remote farm gradually takes shape. With no children and few family ties, Espanta and Espanto spend their days playing pranks on one another, turning routine into a game that helps them resist loneliness. This solitude is interrupted by the arrival of a young postman, who brings with him a distinctive poetic sensibility. Realising he has never delivered mail to this house before, he decides to begin an exchange of anonymous letters. Contact is established through spoken word, as the couple is unable to read or write.

Balancing humour, a certain melancholy, and small gestures of tenderness, this intergenerational encounter reveals vulnerabilities, desires, and memories, opening up space for a sensitive dialogue about time, isolation, and the need for affection. By combining acting and puppetry, Espantos builds a poetic universe where body, memory, and identity coexist. The performance proposes itself as an act of listening and return, where youth and old age meet to celebrate the persistence of the human.