The 11th edition of the Algarve’s contemporary arts festival features 22 shows between April 6 ad 16.
The Algarve’s acclaimed contemporary arts festival Verão Azul is back for its 11th edition. According to the organisation, the festival will be more vigorous this year as it aims to promote decentralisation and creation in contemporary art in its various forms and intersections.
The ten-day Festival will once again feature an unexpected transdisciplinary programme designed by Ana Borralho & João Galante, co-assisted by performer, choreographer and visual artist Daniel Matos.
Between April 6 and 9, Verão Azul takes the stage in various Lagos venues: the Centro Cultural de Lagos, Clube Artístico Lacobrigense, LAC – Laboratório de Actividades Criativas and Espaço Jovem / Escola de Dança de Lagos.
From April 13 to 16, it heads to Loulé, where the festival will be held at the Cine-Teatro Louletano, Bafo de Baco, Alfaia, 8100 Café and the SUL, SOL, SAL venue.
The programme comprises four concerts, five performances, four nights of clubbing, four film sessions, an exhibition, a dance moment, a poetry slam, two conversations and even the launch of a publication. In all, 22 shows will be presented, some of which in both cities.
This year’s theme is sound in its relationship with the body and space. Artists mainly working in the disciplinary intersections and new media area were chosen to make up this year’s programme and “break the limits of normative realities”. Their works include performances, visual arts and video games, pop-electronic fusion concerts, afrobeat, post-hardcore and metal.
In this rationale, we find “MadMud”, a unique voice and piano performance aiming to immerse the public in choreographer Tânia Carvalho’s musical and poetic sphere.
French artist and writer Félicia Atkinson will present her latest album, “Image Langage”. “Resistant to the brain’s desire for spatial continuity, shaking its expectations for a unified perspective, juxtaposing whispers, whispers of atmospheric noise, and digitised instruments that astonishingly float around the auditory field,” is how American online music publication Pitchfork has described the artist’s music.
João Felgueira, aka Joninator, brings “Screen-Inator”, an interactive performance in which the role of a screen as an omnipresent object is explored, occupying physical space as an extension of the human body.
From London comes the award-winning, daring and very political show “Drink Rum With Expats” by Sh!t Theatre. Brits Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole celebrate their last year as Europeans with an anarchic, satire-laden play about home and immigration, with free rum, crowd surfing, sailors’ songs and a dog.
On a more immersive note, Carincur presents “Echos from a Liquid Memory – Prototype Version”, a concert- performance specially adapted to each venue. The show combines musical and visual compositions taken to the extreme using digital manipulation and water.
Collective exhibition NO, FUTURE, NO CRY, curated by Ana Borralho, João Galante and Daniel Matos, combines the works of artists David O’Reilly, Weisstub, Rui Palma, Fernando Ribeiro and Static Drama. Featuring work ranging from sculpture to digital work, the artists “assume the 4th industrial revolution as a vehicle for the immediate and poetic expression of a humanity that seeks and renews itself every second”.
“A Pussy Point of View”, the manifesto- show by dancer and choreographer Piny, questions hyper-sexualisation and the obsession with form, making direct references to Funk, Dancehall, Vogue and Samba.
Parasita launches the 8th edition of “Coreia”, the biannual publication of an experimental, critical and discursive nature about arts in general, established in an umbilical relationship with dance. The session will feature the publication’s editorial director, João dos Santos Martins, and a listening/conference session by artist and composer João Polido, entitled “Sombra de Vento” (Shadow of the Wind).
As usual, Verão Azul is also a party. Late-night clubbing sessions will be hosted by multidisciplinary artist Odete, the DJs Nídia and Xexa, and Berlin-based Swedish artist Tami T, making her debut in Portugal with her mix of EDM, indietronica and electro, in which she talks about gender, intimacy and memories.
Concerts by Hetta and VIL, two musical projects inserted in the spectrum of the new post-hardcore and national metal, promise restless and rough experiences that will leave everyone out of place.
Three films are part of the programme, one of which is “HeadShot” by Antonia Buresi and Lola Quivoron, recorded during the “Gatilho da Felicidade” performance by Ana Borralho & João Galante, and the acclaimed documentary “Sisters with Transistors”, by Lisa Rovner, which tells the remarkable story of the pioneer women of electronic music.
The programme also includes a poetry slam with an open call challenging local artists/poets/diseurs to participate, and three activities part of the student Erasmus+ project.
Produced by the casaBranca cultural association, Verão Azul is financed by DG Artes, with co-production by the Municipality of Lagos and Cine-Teatro Louletano – Câmara Municipal de Loulé. Teatro do Bairro Alto EGEAC CML supports the presentation of Sh!t Theatre.
More information at www.festivalveraoazul.com
