Francisco Thiago Cavalcanti & um cavalo disse mamãe (BR/PT)

Eight people embark on a great journey on foot. We do not know where they came from, nor where they are headed. They travel to escape a foretold catastrophe. In this resilient, stubborn, and circular movement, they carve out space for imagination and wonder, like a faded circus with melancholic performers, yet full of hope. And they sing.

They sing to ward off evil, to bring relief. They sing because the cicadas sing. They sing like Gal Costa on the album Cantar, released in 1974 at the height of Brazil’s military dictatorship. A song that is a cry for freedom, in times of war, religious intolerance, and violence — times in which societies and their States rehearse a return to authoritarian policies, of silencing and death. They sing as an act of resistance. They sing even if the circus is left without a tent, even if the sea floods the cities, even if humanity forgets how to love.

According to Greek mythology, on the star Tau Ceti (in the constellation of the whale), twelve light-years from Earth, exists a miraculous remedy capable of curing humans of sadness. Perhaps that is where they are going.

Public Program

14 August, 19h30
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Website

Credits

Creation, performance and direction
Francisco Thiago Cavalcanti

Co-creation and performance
Bárbara Cordeiro, Francisca Pinto, Mayara Baptista, Piero Ramella, Sara Paternesi, Clarissa Rego, Yaw Tembe

Direction Assistance
Francisca Pinto

Original Music
Yaw Tembe

Light Design and Technical Direction
matéria leve (creation: Ska Batista and Josefa Pereira; accompaniment and mentoring: Leticia Skrycky; writing on the lighting project: Naiana Padial)

Documentation and Social Media
Walesca Timmen

Photographies
Walesca Timmen, Sara Giraldo

Executive Production
Sinara Suzin (Alkantara)

Production
Alkantara, Culturgest

Co-production
Alkantara, TMP ⎯ Teatro Municipal do Porto

Creation Support
OPART, E.P.E./ESTÚDIOS VICTOR CÓRDON

Co-production in Residency
O Espaço do Tempo

With the support of
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Goethe Institut - Culture Moves Europe, La Caldera, Companhia Instável, PAF (Performing Arts Forum), Forum Dança, Centro Cultural da Malaposta, Ilê do Mestre Peixinho, N´goma Capoeira Angola

Um cavalo disse mamãe is an independent, multidisciplinary, and cross-border collective that emerged in Portugal in 2022 from the meeting of Francisco Thiago Cavalcanti, Piero Ramella, Bárbara Cordeiro, and Francisca Pinto. In the context of the Advanced Creation Programme in Performing Arts 5, promoted by Forum Dança and curated in this edition by choreographer and researcher João Fiadeiro, the four artists created the piece “Também se matam cavalos”, and since then they have developed a work of continuous research that addresses, among other themes, the human and animal condition in a dialogical, poetic, and symbolic relationship.

Francisco Thiago Cavalcanti (1984) is a Brazilian artist working in dance, theater, and performance. He holds a bachelor's degree in Dance, a master’s degree in Education, and is pursuing a PhD in Modern Literatures and Cultures. Queer, non-white, and neurodiverse, he began his artistic journey at the age of 9. He is the founder and artistic director of the independent, multidisciplinary, and transboundary collective “um cavalo disse mamãe”, based in Lisbon. Living between Portugal and Brazil, his research focuses, among other topics, on non-human animal behavior, its poetics and symbolisms, physical theater, and dance-theater. In Rio de Janeiro, he collaborated for seven years with choreographer Lia Rodrigues, an experience that strongly resonates in his own work. His creations include: “Contra a espada” (2005), “Cabíria corta o cabelo” (2013), “Mãe” (2015), “Um corpo foi achado” (2018), “Também se matam cavalos” (2022), “Quando eu morrer me enterrem na floresta” (2023), and “52blue” (2024).

CANTAR