Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance ISSN: 1356-9783 (Print) 1470-112X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crde20 On suspension of walls: towards a humanist agenda on marginality Szabolcs Musca in conversation with Madalena Victorino Szabolcs Musca To cite this article: Szabolcs Musca (2019) On suspension of walls: towards a humanist agenda on marginality, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 24:2, 240-249, DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2019.1568866 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2019.1568866 Published online: 21 Jan 2019. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 167 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=crde20 RIDE: THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE 2019, VOL. 24, NO. 2, 240–249 https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2019.1568866 On suspension of walls: towards a humanist agenda on marginality Szabolcs Musca in conversation with Madalena Victorino Szabolcs Musca Centre for Theatre Research (CET), University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This conversation traces the creation of Todos Festival, one of the most important international socially engaged multi-arts festivals in Southern Europe. In dialogue with artistic director, Madalena Victorino, the festival will be portrayed as a space for encounter and performative exploration of difference, linking marginalised migrant and minority communities to Lisbon’s theatre scape and cultural ecology. We discuss modalities of transfiguring difficult (local) realities into performance on the interface between centres and peripheries. Socially engaged theatre; theatre and migration; refugee performance; community festival Internationally acclaimed Portuguese choreographer and educator Madalena Victorino is an artistic director of Lisbon’s Todos Festival. Established in 2009, the festival is often portrayed as one of the most important socially engaged multi-arts festivals in Southern Europe, a recent IETM mapping report classifying it as ‘a beacon for municipal social intervention through arts’.1 Having been educated at the London School of Contemporary Dance, followed by a degree in choreography from Goldsmiths College/Laban Centre for Movement and Dance and an MA in Education from the University of Exeter in the mid1970s and 1980s, Victorino went on to explore the interferences between theatre, choreography and dance pedagogy with a strong social and community focus. Her contemporary dance choreographies and community performance projects, developed in Portugal and beyond, feature a consistent attention on combining artistic, community and educational elements. Her multi-layered artistic approach formed the basis of Forum Danca, an institution co-founded by Victorino in 1991, promoting contemporary dance through performance training, research and documentation featuring a vigorous socio-cultural programme and community engagement. Victorino continued developing various large-scale social and cultural intervention programmes at Centro Cultural de Belem (CCB) for over 12 years (between 1996 and 2008) as director of the institution’s youth programme, successfully establishing Percursos, a European performing arts project for young audiences. Alongside a multitude of socially engaged theatre projects and teaching, Victorino took on the artistic direction of Todos Festival in 2009. Under her direction, Todos fostered a realterm shift in cross-cultural dialogue across Lisbon and contributed to the city’s social and cultural ecology by placing diversity and inclusivity at its centre. CONTACT Szabolcs Musca szabolcs.musca@campus.ul.pt © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 241 The conversation that follows traces the creation of Todos Festival as a space for encounter and performative exploration of difference, linking marginalised migrant and minority communities to Lisbon’s theatre-scape and cultural ecology. We discuss modalities of transfiguring difficult (local) realities into performance on the interface between centres and peripheries. Victorino’s creative practice is process-focussed and very often builds on personal and communal histories and identities. As a theatre scholar looking at contemporary migrant theatre and performance across Europe, I closely followed Victorino’s work during 2017. Her latest collaborative work, entitled Passajar, was a refugee performance commissioned for the 2017 Todos Festival that explored feelings of longing and belonging. For Victorino, this production was yet another attempt to build crossings through migrant and host cultures and communities amidst Lisbon’s fractured socio-cultural landscape. While discussing socially engaged theatre practice and community outreach in this conversation, we cannot help but reflect on Lisbon’s rapidly changing urban environment due to the city’s newly found identity as an important tourist destination and up and coming European capital for start-up businesses. Does this economic revival help to combat social and cultural segregation or, on the contrary, might it carry the risk of further marginalising migrant and minority communities in Lisbon? Fighting against the construction of emotional and physical walls Szabolcs Musca: I wish to start our conversation by reflecting on some of the concepts closely associated with Todos Festival, then moving closer to your latest commission of Passajar, a refugee performance co-created with other theatre-makers. How did the festival come about in the first place? Madalena Victorino: The festival started with an idea coming from António Costa, the then mayor of Lisbon, currently the prime minister of Portugal. Around 10 years ago, he wanted to develop an intercultural event in Lisbon, referencing the example of Brazil, specifically multicultural processions where the organisers work with people from diverse social and cultural backgrounds. These colourful Brazilian festivities with their lively music et cetera, taking place in public spaces across cities and towns showcase a sense of dignity for people who are otherwise lost on the peripheries of society. During such public events, communities can meet and connect beyond the confines of the neighbourhoods they live in. He wanted to create something intercultural but also dignifying for those non-Portuguese residents living in certain boroughs of Lisbon. The concept then developed into the idea to bring about an initiative that could highlight foreign people living in Lisbon but who are under-privileged. At that moment in time, our festival director Miguel Abreu2 was working with Manuela Júdice3 and the mayor of Lisbon. I entered into a dialogue with them as I was leaving Centro Cultural de Belem after being the artistic programmer of the institution for 12 years. SM: I suppose it was good timing. MV: I was working on the arts programme for the youth, and also making connections with the elderly and developing the education programme, working with groups of teachers and the public across a broad layer of the social spectrum. The institution’s direction 242 S. MUSCA was changing: from a humanist view on culture towards a more autocratic view. I decided to leave. I felt that I wanted to be where people need me most and where I can do work that is more essential. And so, I was asked to join the team of Miguel Abreu, given my connections to socially engaged arts. I accepted the position and I also suggested that Giacomo Scalisi4 joined the project. Being from Italy originally, he has a wide European perspective on arts and society and has a similar background (he programmed theatre and contemporary circus at Centro Cultural de Belem beforehand). That is how we started to work. The chosen neighbourhood was Intendente in central Lisbon. A neighbourhood that carried a very strong stigma for a long time as a place of fear. Historically, this part of Lisbon drawn a large number of immigrants as well as people from very poor backgrounds. The neighbourhood was seen as a place for marginalised communities and individuals. Then, António Costa decided to locate his office there and slowly cultural events materialised. The first edition of Todos Festival took place in Indendente and it was a big adventure. I met drug dealers, prostitutes, drug addicts, very poor Portuguese people, old people living there, many Asians, Roma, Africans and Brazilians. The place was inhabited by neglected communities, most of whom lived there illegally, hiding and not wanting to be connected to any official activity. SM: Did you have your headquarters within the neighbourhood? MV: We had our headquarters within a little shop in the neighbourhood, very basic and with lots of problems. At the beginning of the festival, we thought to bring forms of arts that are more accessible to a wider audience, so we programmed the Fanfare du Rajasthan to reach out to large communities. It was an immense success – the Asian community came out and suddenly you could see Asian women, who were leading an almost hidden life within their small flats. It was the first step in starting to know them. The year after the first edition, I climbed up to their balconies and developed close connections with them. Social clubs were also very much present in the neighbourhood: clubs established by economic migrants coming from the north and south of Portugal, immigrants from Pakistan and from elsewhere. All driven by immense poverty just after World War Two, these social clubs were established in the 1950s and 1960s and were an integral part of the city’s social ecology. These clubs were established by communities themselves to reduce the longing that people had for their lands. They could listen to regional music and eat food from their homelands. By now most of these clubs have disappeared, destroyed by the wave of tourism. Everything is turning into hotels or restaurants. At the beginning of Todos Festival they were still there, and I was keen to use these spaces as organic locations of the festival events. SM: What was your view on Lisbon’s social and ethnic fabric when you started the festival nearly 10 years ago and how did that change over time? MV: Both the city and our remits changed a lot. Ten years ago, our work concentrated on immigration, both legal and illegal. We were faced with migrant communities from around the world, people trying to sort out their papers and legalise their status. This was the case for individuals and families coming from Brazil, Africa, Asia and also Eastern Europe. We met people striving to have a better life and trying to get their legal status in order so RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 243 that they could get a job and bring their families to Portugal. Many were thriving, but many more struggling. This was the world we entered in Indendente. Others felt blocked and were forced into mafia-like living strategies. I remember meeting a young Bangladeshi guy in a telephone box on the street, soon realising that this phone box was actually a meeting point for some of the Bangladeshi community. Now, this young man was robbed by his fellow nationals soon after arriving to Lisbon. He lost everything. We helped him a lot through the festival, gave him work and food, and I bought him a mattress so that he could sleep in a friend’s shop. He is now working in the intercultural office at the city council, working with immigration issues. This is what we saw in this neighbourhood. This underground world still exists in some parts of the city, but then, life continues in Lisbon. The middle-class population of the city distances itself from this, that is a separate world. SM: A city of parallel realities? MV: Yes, exactly. And it is much worse now I think, because of several phenomena. Such places are both rich and poor at the same time: culturally very rich and economically very poor. Places like Intendente are fragile environments – it seems to me that such places are rather exploited now for their exotic character by the middle and upper classes. The tourism industry enters forcefully, being enchanted by the exotic nature of such culturally diverse places and this alters the geography and the social and cultural environment. The Intendente I know is now somewhat hidden, squeezed behind the façade. Meanwhile, a new refugee crisis is looming around us, reinforcing already existing social segregation and risking the creation of new ghettos yet again. SM: The migrant communities you encountered nearly 10 years ago are by now longstanding residents of Lisbon. Is there a fear that new arrivals would be pushed to the outskirts of the city? MV: Yes. SM: Although, I suppose Indendente was considered as outskirts at the time, at least in peoples’ mental geography. MV: Well, not the outskirts as such, but a place enclosed by an invisible wall within the centre. Many Intendentes exist now at the outskirts of the city. Lisbon was much smaller back then. By now, immigration is at the forefront of our everyday lives, but at the same time, Lisbon’s newly found touristic identity also disguises it in many respect. It looks as if the economy is booming, but I believe the problems remain. As for refugee issues, I had the chance to become closely acquainted with deep problems on this front when we moved the festival to the Poco dos Negros/Sao Bento area in 2013, another city centre location. SM: The festival took place in this area, close to the Portuguese Parliament, which now is considered to be yet another hipster place in Lisbon. 244 S. MUSCA MV: Yes, since the festival is funded by the city council, the location was always chosen by the local administration. First Martim Moniz/Intendente, then Poco dos Negros/Sao Bento and then Campo Santana for the last 2 years. Although I am not familiar with the strategic reasons behind selecting certain locations, I think the city council is conscious of the festival’s development function. We are active in capacity building and we tend to create new dynamics in the neighbourhoods we are present inside. In turn, this helps the city council to promote parts of the city that are underdeveloped. The festival actively reinvigorated life in Sao Bento and Poco dos Negros, places where nothing really happened before. SM: Do you think that the festival is used politically as vehicle for gentrification? MV: Not overtly. I think the city council likes the festival because it helps them to create a focus on these neighbourhoods. The festival develops attention to and desire for these parts of the city, and economic development might follow afterwards. The first thing we do when installing ourselves in the respective neighbourhood is search for anything that could be connected to the festival: people, institutions, existing activities. We like to engage with everything the neighbourhood has to offer and transform that as part of the events together with partners. In Sao Bento, audiences were able to visit the parliament building and we also created works there that reflected politics and arts as well. We tend to transform unused, dormant places into vibrant spaces for connecting people. Politicians are aware that the festival can act as an extension of their regular social and educational work with neighbourhood associations and local institutions. We do not and cannot replace local government services. What we can and will do is transfigure local issues into public awareness via artistic practices. For instance, dance is essentially about the body and its movements transfigured into an artistic dimension. So, what we are trying to do is draw attention to several, often acute local problems through our creative activities. SM: The festival gives space to different migrant communities, providing a real exposure of migrant cultures. Do you see a change in the overall reception of minority or migrant cultures as a result of the Todos Festival? How do such principles of inclusivity filter through and into the dynamics between majority and minorities in Lisbon? I suppose a lot depends on the types of audiences you attract to the festival each year. MV: I do not know if our scope is as large as that. We know that our festival has quite a loyal public that is constantly increasing. We had thousands of people attending the festival in 2017. SM: I was referring to the performances and spaces created here, numerous site-specific productions and outreach events that communicate with both the locals and the festival goers. What I was interested in this respect is your view on the festival’s contribution to a better understanding of migration through performing arts. MV: I was about to say that we started off with a classic intercultural model in mind that slowly developed into a broader cross-cultural practice. Crossings are very important for us, both between local inhabitants and artists, and we pursue this stance in our programming. We program artists who have a strong interest in immigrant realities and the politics RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 245 connected to immigration. Many of these artists are new to the neighbourhoods and to each other as well. Interferences develop between styles, views and ways of creating. I do not think there are enough artists in Portugal dealing with and working around this field, I would love to see much more socially engaged work. I think there’s a lot of narcissistic and opportunistic theatre coming out. Many theatre-makers just follow the formats and the issues they feel are trendy and we rarely see artists leaving their comfort zones and connect to major issues around us. That is why I like to teach in arts schools and universities, I hope to humanise artists so that they are more reflective and understand the importance of having an artistic voice on certain issues. What the festival does is invite theatre-makers such as Monica Calle,5 who works with communities on the margins of society, or Marlene Freitas,6 who works with the concept of extremities, limits and imbalances. What is behind consciousness and where does mental imbalances take us? In 2017, we were allowed to use a formal psychiatric hospital as a venue for the festival – we thought that this space would work well for Marlene. Another topic that featured in 2017 was fear. The festival tries to act as space for multiple exploration. We also invite young, emerging artists and provide space for their development – this also means that they will face with migrant and marginalised realities never encountered before. Although the time is short, and the conditions are far from ideal, we hope that the time spent as part of the festival would be artistically fulfilling. Our budget only allows for around 3 months preparation, not much more. But at some point, in 2014 we received extra funds to work with the choreographer Vânia Rovisco.7 We put together a project that lasted 9 months and she worked with a large number of homeless men from Angola, Morocco, Portugal and Brazil among others. Entitled Project Margins: Between the Artistic and the Social/A Project of Empathies, this initiative challenged urban myths and had considerable outreach. I think the festival has its limits in terms of social development or contribution to the larger society, but within our limits I think we do a lot. I like to take the available opportunities fully to enhance visibility. SM: How do you expand your audiences beyond the engaging base that is already aware of the social issues the festival tackles? MV: Through the invited artists. We also invite theatre-makers whose work would not normally be associated with Todos Festival or the issues we present. We provide a new context for their work, and so they bring new audiences who follow their work. It is extremely interesting to see when people with certain preconceptions turn around and are pleasantly surprised. After all, todos means ‘everybody’, we really try to constantly reach out to as well as enrich our audiences. SM: The festival is unique in the Portuguese theatre landscape mostly because it links migrant and minority communities organically to arts projects. What we see especially in public theatre across Europe is a reluctance to engage with these communities, and when they do, the focus is often on audience development. What is your methodology in approaching these communities locally? MV: I am very much interested in people. Genuinely. Some people love animals, others like to travel, I am fascinated by people. It is very simple, I just go to neighbourhoods and offer 246 S. MUSCA to create projects with the inhabitants. We can develop something together with locals, their stories, the artists and the neighbourhood. Then we present it as a feast, as an extended moment of encounter. There’s nothing very special about it, it is just a very genuine way to encounter differences. I am very interested in the human value, and the only technique of mine is based on hard work to overcome bureaucracy. Sometimes institutions are reluctant, and I need to find ways to engage them in projects. Over the years, I developed a web of connections that allows me to move freer, so now it is easier to make real connections. There are also many people who have worked with me and they are very enthusiastic about our agenda, a humanist agenda on marginality. We work on the interface of the centre and periphery to give value and change the attitudes towards people with different backgrounds. For years, Giacomo [Scalisi] and I tried to acquire a theatre where we could develop this work, but our applications for publicly funded theatre institutions failed. We are not protected politically at all. SM: Politics is often short-sighted when it comes to long-term artistic endeavours. MV: Yes, so now I just take every opportunity to develop socio-cultural projects whenever is possible. SM: Returning to artistic methodology: do you work differently in different settings, i.e. working in a state-subsidised theatre setting versus working with communities and non-professionals? MV: Of course, the field of community theatre can be a challenging world, many artists work with non-professional actors using different methodologies, so there is no single way to the creation process. What I have learned myself is to work carefully but strongly at the same time; not only carefully giving support and empowering participants but also being exigent. Being demanding in the sense that gives real importance to people and the creative process. I have seen many works with non-professionals where people were used almost as decoration or even as a pretext to secure funding and comply with the political agenda of community outreach. This makes me angry because I think that the work should be based on real engagement. You need to help the participants to learn how to become others, to forget their daily lives and enter the artistic realm. Without the understanding of their importance in the process, you won’t be able to achieve change. Participants need to have confidence in themselves and in the artists working with them. It is about creating a path jointly, a path that can lead us to a production. A lot depends on the type of work, the points of departure and the ways we solve conflicts and creative concerns. And then of course, how do you adapt your own artistic practice in the respective context. As a choreographer, I often rely on practices of body consciousness and physical expression in representing otherness or difference. Towards a humanist agenda on marginality SM: Your recent project entitled Passajar [Passage or Passing]8 can be very much linked to the concepts we discussed before and especially trust. You commissioned four theatremakers to work with recent refugees over a few months, having the work premiered at RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 247 the Todos Festival in September 2017. How was this project conceived and how did you structure the work? MV: I like the idea of trusting. This is something that the English culture has taught me. I studied and lived in England as a young woman and I was astonished by the confidence that people have in each other. Here in Portugal this is impossible, because we have a fascist heritage. I will trust anybody, up until the point when I cannot trust the person anymore. I have worked with prisoners in the past and I started from the point of trust. It is an arrangement, a pact we make and from this exchange something important is born, a bond. This is essential when you are working with other theatre-makers and communities. It is part of my humanising artists approach, bringing them into real contact with difficult realities. This is how Passajar started. I encountered theatre-maker Margarida Gonçalves, actor Estêvão Antunes, musician Júnior and dancer Maria Ramos and invited them to work with a group of refugees. I gave them the freedom, but I was also aware of the artistic differences between them. This is precisely what interested in them – the different approaches they would use. SM: The outcome of this collaboration was a very expressive, visual and immersive work around the concept of suspension: in time, space and culture. The creators’ individual approaches shone through the production with a mixture of solos, duos and collective choreographies. MV: Also, their presence on stage. SM: Indeed so. It would be interesting to hear about the development of the process and how the outcome compared to your preliminary vision … MV: My vision was driven by the desire to enable these young refugees to encounter theatre through this project. At the beginning of the project, we had a fantastic group of people from migrant backgrounds, but most of them left the group due to health problems or reasons of being re-located. Only Júnior, a young Congolese man, remained from this initial group and the young Syrian refugees. Then three Zimbabwean girls joined. The changes were part of the process right from the beginning. With regard to the artists’ team, I worked as a facilitator, helping them through the initial stages of the project. I was there when they felt lost in the process. We were not worried about creating a masterpiece, it was more about the process. SM: From the audience’s perspective of course, the production is received as a stand-alone aesthetic product, a piece of performance. Certain aesthetics are being created and developed during the rehearsals and the show featured multiple performance and installation sequences loosely joined together. I am really interested in how the refugee participants related to concepts and the creative process itself? MV: I think there were different dynamics and positions between the creators. For example, Júnior from Congo worked very well with our other Júnior, the musician – they connected really beautifully. The three Zimbabwean women connected well with 248 S. MUSCA Margarida. Then, there was Maria, whose dance sequence with Haitham was more conceptual. And of course, Estêvão, whose solo was more theatrical, him being an actor. In a way, there was a bit of schizophrenia, given that there were many personalities involved in the creation. There were moments, when I went in to see where they were in the process and remember feeling that things are a bit lost, so then I proposed some arrangements and suggested some solutions. All the ingredients were there, it just needed a directorial hand. Cutting short one of the duos led to a conflict with Haitham, one of the refugee participants. He felt that I interfered and took away a part of his scene. He had every right to raise that, but I also needed to act on the theatre-makers’ request and pull the production together. After a series of discussions with Haitham, we managed to resolve his concerns, and all was fine. SM: What is the future of this show in particular and for the refugee participants specifically? I am asking this to reflect on the main concerns such migrant theatre initiatives pose, namely that they are often short-term engagements and might create raptures in the lives of refugees. Participants might find it hard to integrate the experience in their own lives and narratives. MV: The future of the show is difficult as it depends on the four artists really. I think it was a beautiful, but very hard experience for them. They work all over the country now, so it would be hard to get them together for a longer performance work. The connection with the people remains and I will maintain it, also being attentive to upcoming possibilities to work together again in the future. We exchanged phone numbers and some of them already started to participate in other theatre projects – Haitham worked with Beatriz Batarda at Teatro da Trindade in Lisbon.9 The Syrian children are doing well, they are in school studying – it would be hard for them to attend rehearsals outside the holidays. What I want them to know is that I am here for them. I am more worried about the Zimbabwean girls – they only recently arrived, and they were at the refugee centre throughout the performance. I am also not afraid of ending a process. These few months were really important for all of us and it gave this community of people a real momentum. Notes 1. Maria João Guardão, Contemporary Performing Arts in Portugal: An Overview (Brussels: IETM, 2018): 11. https://www.ietm.org/en/publications/contemporary-performing-arts-in-portugalan-overview (accessed 23 August 2018). 2. Miguel Abreu is General Director of the Todos Festival. 3. Manuela Júdice is director of Lisbon City Council’s ‘Lisbon Encounters the World’ Office (GLEM). 4. Giacomo Scalisi is an Italian-born actor, director and curator, long-term partner and co-creator of Madalena Victorino. He is an artistic director of various large-scale international theatre festivals and projects in Europe and a co-artistic director of the Todos Festival in Lisbon. 5. Monica Calle is a Portuguese actress and theatre director, founder of Casa Conveniente (established in 1992), a theatre company working with communities in one of Lisbon’s most deprived areas, Chelas/Marvila. 6. Marlene Freitas is a theatre-maker originally from Cape Verde. She is a co-founder of the contemporary dance company Compass and P.O.R.K, a production house based in Lisbon. She RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 249 presented her performance Bacchae – Prelude to a purge in the now closed Miguel Bombarda Psychiatric Hospital (Lisbon) as part of Todos Festival 2017. The production was a performative reflection on the hospital’s collection of wax figures depicting various pathological cases. 7. Vânia Rovisco is a performer dancer working on installations and durational performance projects exploring concepts of affection and relations. Her production entitled Silos de carros e estradas giratórias [Car parks and road junctions] was presented at the Todos Festival in 2014. 8. Passajar [Passage/Passing] created by Margarida Gonçalves, Maria Ramos, Estêvão Antunes, Júnior, facilitator Madalena Victorino and the participants: Birivan Moustafa, Haitham Khatib, Josephine Manjonjo, Jugaulond Manira, Júnior Manira Shema, Khoshnaf Alosh, Millicent Matambanadro, Miriam Santos, Mirna Moustafa, Mohamed Yahya Dabah, Mustafa, Patrícia Quirós, Rohaf Alosh, Valerie Mayo. 9. Todo o Mundo é um Palco [All the World is a Stage] based on Shakespeare’s As You Like It, directed by Beatriz Batarda and Marco Martins, premiered on 17 November 2017 at Teatro da Trindade, Lisbon. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. Funding This work was supported by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian: [Research Grant 2016]; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia: [Research Fellowship Grant, 2017]. Notes on contributor Szabolcs Musca is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Theatre Research (CET) at the University of Lisbon (Portugal), and Founding Director of New Tides Platform (UK), currently leading an international research project on theatre and migration in Europe. He is a Project Lead of Migrant Dramaturgies Network, an international research network composed of academics, theatre-makers and organisations. He holds a PhD from the University of Bristol and he worked as a researcher, teacher and theatre critic for over 10 years, both in the UK and continental Europe.