Extending a series of collaborations we have had since 2020 with Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and promoting creation and mobility of artists, this year’s PALOP 2025 Program is organized around two main axes:
Guinea-Bissau: Kurpu di Mundu
- coordinator Pedro Ramos
- co-production Estúdios Victor Córdon, Camões Bissau, Ballet Nacional da Guiné, Ordem do Ó
This project arises from a series of artist residencies and training programs between Guiné-Bissau and Portugal, from choreographers Ernesto Nambera and Pedro Ramos’ creative partnership, and from the exchange between collaborating dancers from Ordem do Ó and Ballet Nacional/Grupo de Dança Contemporânea da Guiné-Bissau. In Kurpu di Mundu, the aim is to reflect on some of the main concerns of today’s world at a political, social, and environmental level, but also on the potential of dance and the body to foster reflection on the possible meanings that engaging with others and with what surrounds us can have. Between past and present times, we propose an attunement to the multiple biological and spiritual realities, aligned with the feeling of belonging and of being connected to the earth.
Mozambique: Other Directions
- coordinator David Marques
- coproduction Estúdios Victor Córdon, Camões Maputo
In 2025, the EVC and the Portuguese choreographer David Marques will travel to Maputo in search of new connections and to meet again dance artists with whom they have already collaborated. These meetings are to be understood as a free space for dialogue, devoted both to the sharing of ways of doing and work tools and to the dance community’s concerns and needs. With these meetings, we wish to provide the occasion and time to conceive new possibilities of cooperation for the future, taking into account the challenges and the social, cultural, and political circumstances in present-day Mozambique and Portugal.
After an artistic intervention in which posters displaying questions were put up in the streets and various cultural spaces in Maputo and Mugangueni, in Macaneta, the project Fazer falar o fazer ("Making the making speak") brings together different artists from Mozambique for a five-day meeting organized by David Marques. During this meeting, participants will be experimenting with free speech practices and some performative devices, designed for artistic work in dance.
This meeting anticipates a new edition of David Marques and Teresa Silva's project Fazer falar o fazer with artists from Portugal and Mozambique, coming up in 2026.
This project is part of the EVC's program of activities, in partnership with Parca, Instituto Camões, Mugangueni, and Kinani — Festival Internacional de Dança Contemporânea de Moçambique (International Contemporary Dance Festival of Mozambique).
