Teatro Municipal do Porto Announces 2020/2021 Season

Teatro Municipal do Porto has announced their 2020/2021 season featuring both in person programming (at 50% capacity) as well as a selection of online programming!

They made the following announcement via their website:

RE:DESIGN

When we were forced to stop in March, we were starting the second half of the 2019/2020 season with the ever-renewed enthusiasm of premiering performances by Portuguese and international companies, bringing to Porto artists that we're excited about and stand up for.

We could have not imagined that in the following four months all those projects would be postponed for the season that is now beginning.

We took on the challenge of redesigning the 2020/2021 season, a complex endeavour to simultaneously ensure that all announced performances would be presented and that the existing commitments for the following season would be kept.

So the programme we now put forward features what didn't and what would take place, balancing the wishes and expectations of both artists and audiences.

RE:CONSIDER

It couldn't however be a simple organising exercise, nor a straightforward attempt to fit performances and honour commitments. The last few months made a dent and it seems certain nothing will stay in the same place. It is therefore up to cultural institutions to reflect upon and take on their place as oracles of today's world in a future as near as unknown.

Recognising the challenges of the times we live in, the entire programme for the 2020/2021 season was reconsidered in its analogue (on stage) and digital (on the Internet) components, enabling the audiences to choose the way in which they wish to find out about our propositions. With room capacity limited to 50%, we figured an on-line programme based on our anchor performances, as well as a series of projects specifically designed for digital media-that bring together five film/video directors and five artists from several performing disciplines, aiming at creating original works for the digital environment. Our site (www.teatromunicipaldoporto.pt) and social media shall thus play a far greater role, providing different and stimulating entryways into our programme.

RE:FOCUS

Recent times were also key to refocus our mission. Six seasons went by since in September 2014 we renamed the pairing of Rivoli and Campo Alegre as Teatro Municipal do Porto (TMP). As from September 2020, TMP tunes its programme according to the mission that defines and characterises it. Dance, in all its aesthetic diversity, shall be emphasised as the core discipline. Co-productions with companies and artists working from within the city, as well as national and international theatre, animated forms, contemporary circus, literature and dance projects, shall gain even greater importance in the artistic development of the companies. The team of Paralelo - Approach Programme to Performing Arts shall be increased, allowing for the strengthening of its programmes, mediation activity and expanded education service, thus going further when it comes to bring the audiences closer and ensure their diversity.

RE:STAGE

The programme for the 2020/2021 season displays the disciplinary and aesthetic diversity that characterises TMP. In the ensuing pages, you'll be able to find out about everything we have to offer over the next six months. Some of what we expected to premiere this season was postponed for 2021/2022. The inability to benefit from rehearsal venues, artistic residencies and technical residencies led to several new creations never even making it to the stage, thus postponing premieres originally scheduled for the second semester of 2020.

We therefore decided to work out a programme that will bring back on stage key pieces in the history of dance-pieces that many will possibly know, but haven't watched live. It is our belief that knowing the origins of an artistic discipline through its most iconic titles will help to understand the path it travelled up to present time. What is seen today as a historical landmark was the most contemporary there was at the time it was created; and its contemporaneity and artistic appeal was as powerful decades ago as it is now.

We shall thereby present the National Ballet of Portugal and the programme "Dançar em Tempo de Guerra" [Dancing During Wartime], which brings together two pieces from the 1930s that mirror the concerns of their authors about the warlike environment of the time: A Mesa Verde (1932), by Kurt Jooss, and Chronicle (1936), by Martha Graham.

We will also host CCN - Ballet de Lorraine and rediscover two of the most iconic works by American modern dance pioneer Merce Cunningham: RainForest (1968), featuring the installation Silver Clouds, by Andy Warhol, as scenery, and Sounddance (1975).

Twenty years after its premiere in Paris, Jérôme Bel restages The show must go on (2001) with performers from Porto and Lisbon. This seminal piece speculates on the mechanisms of performances and the connective mirror they are able to establish between dancers and spectators.

We will also dedicate a focus programme to Cape Verdean choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas that includes her latest creation, Mal - Embriaguez Divina [Evil - Divine Inebriation], and the restaging of two pieces with which she became internationally known: Guintche (2010) and Jaguar (2015).

RE:ACTIVATE

The return to TMP has been carefully planned, safeguarding the proper safety measures. We are aware the desire to return to public spaces, theatres and the discovery that can only be carried out when sharing the same physical space must take place with every precaution and ensuring the necessary safety regulations. We have done everything to make sure that is the case and the sharing ritual continues to exist (now also with other rituals guaranteeing safe fruition).
As you return to Rivoli and Campo Alegre, you'll find two theatres that are fully equipped and prepared to welcome audiences, artists and teams in the best possible way.

For more information CLICK HERE.

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