Teatro de Marionetas do Porto (Portugal)

The Teatro de Marionetas do Porto is celebrating its 37th anniversary this year. In 2023, to celebrate its 35th anniversary, the company premiered this show, “that focuses on the reflections of our founder in communion with ours. This is our celebration, our tribute.” - Marionetas do Porto

Centred on João Paulo Seara Cardoso's staging’s, Marionetas do Porto made an autoscopy of the company's work between 1993 and 2010, and FIMFA joins this tribute.

“It’s this strange resonance of theatre with life that we obsessively seek.” - João Paulo Seara Cardoso, 2001

“After an in-depth analysis of documents, video recordings, writings, interviews, books, objects, plants (…) we realised that the director’s focus, present in some shows, would be to reflect on a post-modern world, characterised by massification, isolation, loss of identity and how our emotions and senses survive in this urban world (…). Rather than taking stock of the company’s most emblematic plays, Armazém 88 sets out to reflect on the same subjects, with the premise of extracting music, texts, puppets, costumes, scenes and movements from shows directed by João Paulo Seara Cardoso, recreating them in our bodies, with our own perspectives and wills.” – Micaela Soares

^{“With a sense of spectacle that runs throughout the work, with a very refined scenic rigour and well-crafted movements, the company has brought back to life the creations of the director and puppeteer who died 13 years ago.” - Catarina Ferreira, Jornal de Notícias}

BIO

Teatro de Marionetas do Porto was founded in 1988, a symbolic date that corresponds to the presentation of the company at the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes de Charleville-Mézières. The company’s theatrical practice reveals a non-conventional way of looking at puppets—in fact, an ever-changing notion—and an understanding of puppet theatre as a poetic and visual language reminiscent of contemporaneity.  They seek to find new ways of designing puppets, which are ultimately kinetic objects, and new ways of exploring the grammar of this theatrical language concerning performance and the cross-cutting relation with other forms of expression such as dance, visual arts, music and image. In 2013, during the celebration of its 25th anniversary, the company fulfilled the great dream of its founder (João Paulo Seara Cardoso, 1956-2010) and opened the Porto Puppet Museum.

In addition to the shows, its main activity, the company creates a wide range of projects, from workshops to staged readings and various exhibitions, thus developing a strong connection with the community and the public. These activities are presented in the city of Porto, in its various venues, the Belomonte Theatre, the Puppet Museum and the Puppet Pole/Bonjóia, as well as in an intense touring activity in Portugal and abroad.

Teatro de Marionetas do Porto received the Henrique Delgado Cultural Merit Award in 2024.

_CREDITS

_{Created by: Marionetas do Porto (Micaela Soares, João Pedro Trindade, Filipe Azevedo, Vitor Gomes, Catarina Falcão) Text and dramaturgy: Collective Performers: Bernardo Gavina, Mariana L. Ferreira, Micaela Soares, Vítor Gomes Dramaturgical assistance: Jorge Louraço Figueira Scenography: Bruno Capucho Music: Roberto Neulichedl Lighting design: Filipe Azevedo Costumes: Pedro Ribeiro Special appearance: Filipe Azevedo Artistic consultants: Igor Gandra, Isabel Barros, Luís Aly, Mário Moutinho Production: Sofia Carvalho Seamstress: Letícia Santos Lighting and sound operation: Filipe Azevedo Photography: Pedro Sardinha Coproduction: Teatro Municipal do Porto, Festival Internacional de Marionetas do Porto Company sponsored by: República Portuguesa - Cultura / DGArtes}

_{www.marionetasdoporto.pt}