The Lisbon Encounter is the first step of the year long project Close Encounters 2005-06. The participants of Close Encounters are meeting in Lisbon for a period of three weeks to exchange experiences, work on their creations and debate the issues of the project. The participants are:

• Miguel Pereira (Portugal) and Karima Mansour (Egypt)
• Filipa Francisco (Portugal) and Idoia Zabaleta (Spain - Basque Country)
• Claudia Müller (Brazil) and Cristina Blanco (Spain)
• Dani Lima (Brazil) and Sodja Lotker (Serbia / Czech Republic)
• Gustavo Ciríaco (Brazil) and Andrea Sonnberger (Austria / Germany)
• João Galante and Ana Borralho (Portugal) - the project includes a residency in Japan and may come to involve a 'Japanese' collaboration

The Encounter includes the following activities:

• presentation of the work of the participants and exchange of ideas on working methods and artistic options
• initiation of the creative processes by each of the collaborating teams
• addressing the theme local/space, through visits to the various spaces that are available for Close Encounters 2006
• discussion of themes related to the project, together with scholars and artists, invited by Bojana Cveji

Public Program

Although the Lisbon Encounter is mainly a research and creation project, we open the doors to the public on a number of occasions:

Todos os eventos são de entrada livre, com excepção do espectáculo "no body never mind, 002" (6€) e dos concertos na ZDB (5€)
NEGÓCIO: Rua de O Século, nº 9, porta 5 (Páteo de Santa Clara)
ZDB: Rua da Barroca nº 59

Ana Borralho and João Galante (Portugal)
no body never mind, 002

Ana Borralho and João Galante present the premiere of no body never mind, 002 on August 4th. The piece is part of the NBNM project, a series of three creations around the themes of body/mind, in/out, emotion/sentiment, me/the other. The first part of NMNM, no body never mind, 001 (November 2004), consisted of a life event in which both interpreters had a phrase tattooed on their back: "no body" (Ana Borralho) and "never mind" (João Galante). The third piece of the trilogy, no body never mind, 003, will be presented during the alkantara festival in Lisbon in June 2006. no body never mind, 002 was partly realised during residencies in Tokyo and Yokohama and in Lisbon at LAB/ RE.AL and at NEGÓCIO - ZDB.

"We believe that dance doesn't have a proper existence separated from life. no body never mind is not just an organisation of time and space, but rather an intense way of living, a conscious duel with the solemn act of living. Its fundamental structure resides in the contradiction between the human impulse of self-destruction and the resistance against dissolution. Thus, the piece becomes a catalyst for the deconstruction of values, including the deconstruction of the Self"

Ana Borralho & João Galante

Creation, interpretation, video: Ana Borralho and João Galante
Original music (composition): Vítor Rua
Musician: Eddie Prévost
Characterisation: Jorge Bragada
Dramaturgy: Fernando Ribeiro
Graphic design: José Pelicano e Pelicano
Video registration during residencies: Helena Inverno
Production management: Carla Oliveira e Mónica Samões
Production: casa branca
Co-production: alkantara, JGM - João Garcia Miguel, unipessoal, ZDB, Wid.Lov
Support: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, RE.AL, Fórum Dança, Quinta das Aves, Eira
Project financed by Instituto das Artes / Ministério da Cultura
Thanks: Bang Bang Tattoos (Eduardo Pinela, Satu Virkkunen), Gudo Wafu Nishigima, Gustavo Pacheco, Kazuo Ohno, Kayoko Tokumitsu, Luís Carapeto, João Fiadeiro, João Samões, João Queirós, Patrícia Leal, Pedro Morais, Sachico Ishikawa, Toshico Kosuage, Yoshito Ohno.

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Jan Kopp (Germany / France)
Sannectamock (film 15 min. + presentation)

A video produced during a workshop with students from the Ecole Superieure d'Art of Perpignan (France), Sannectamock documents the five-day period during which Jan Kopp, a visual artist, taught dance, without having any mastery to its technique.   He established a mode of communication with and between the students through the use of invented languages.   The documentary shows the various stages of the workshop, from the warm-up to the public dress rehearsal held on stage.

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A wall, it could be anywhere, with all the expected codes, patterns, and schematic signs pointing towards "the exit", "the stairway", "the alarm"... Drawings of arrows, lines and circles, glowing in the dark; it's them, all those pictures, set inside squares. Who thought them up? Who marks them as worthy and universally comprehensible?

"sQUARE_aRROW_pERSON rUNNING" starts like a game. A game in which we are newly introduced to those signs and objects to which we're so accustomed; a way of transforming them, to pluck them out of context time and again, and create their meaning anew...   a way of turning a common place (the wall) into a new space, unique to itself. The space transform itself into a series of micro spaces in which certain stories take place, some of them absurd, others tragic, the objective being continuous perceptual change on the part of the spectator... The wall, previously "normal", now becomes something else, something through which we come into contact with a coded world, hidden behind signs and objects, doors and plugs.... This journey through space becomes an excuse to decompose the information contained within these very spaces and to manipulate our everyday codes of language in order to create a new and different language.

Source text for the material comes from a fire extinguisher label and clothes labelling. The materials used in the piece are the performer's body and the symbols and objects found in the room. These signs become into hieroglyphics to be solved by both performer and spectator; the role that the performer plays is ambiguous: On the one hand, she controls and manipulates this space while -on the other- allows herself to be swept along by it until she becomes trapped by the very same code that she has created.

Creation and interpretation: Cristina Blanco
Production: Cristina Blanco
Assistance: Aula de Danza de Alcalá de Henares
Assistance set design: Verónica Regueiro

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Andrea Sonnberger (Austria/Germany)
Der Boxer I (20 min.)

In this solo I describe different emotional situations, which have developed from occupying myself theoretically and for a short time also practically with boxing. The solo has equally something to do with questioning myself about being on stage and what to show. The piece was meant to be a duo with a golf player; in the solo version I will concentrate on an inner fight.

choreography: Andrea Sonnberger
music: Thomas König

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Gustavo Ciríaco (Brazil)
An Imaginary Conference on my Whereabouts (20 min)

Between perception and productive imagination, a dancer, out of his particular memories, clichés and movement, makes an invitation to the audience: to follow him on a journey through an outside view on Brazil, a tourists' Brazil blended in with its souvenirs. An exploratory voyage through our whereabouts transformed into a field of poetic action.

"An Imaginary Conference..." is a project under continuous transformation which premiered as a site specific project in May 2004 at the Made in Brésil Festival at Ferme du Buisson (Paris). It was later performed at Panorama Rio Dança, in the project Encontros Imediatos Lisboa-Rio, at the Hospital Real Beneficência Portuguesa. It premiered as a staged performance at Festival Internacional de Nova Dança in Brasília, February 2005. The piece will be part of the official season of the Year of Brazil in France, in November 2005.

Creation   / Text / Performance: Gustavo Ciríaco
Director Assistant: Francini Barros
Creation and confection of scenic objects: Maria José de Figueiredo Ciríaco
Photography: Firmino Salgueiro
Music: "Copacabana" João de Barro e Alberto Ribeiro, "Vai Lacraia" MC Serginho, "Menino Deus" Márcio Duarte e Paulo César Pinheiro

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Dead Combo (Portugal)

The widely acclaimed album "Vol. 1" confirmed Dead Combo as one of the most interesting Portuguese bands dedicated to (instrumental) song. Sprung from an invitation by Henrique Amaro to participate in the homage to the legendary Portuguese guitar player Carlos Paredes, Dead Combo have ever since been regular guests at live concerts and created music for the films of Edgar Pêra. At this moment, they are preparing their second album at ZDB.

www.deadcombo.net

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automat.piss.tool (Finland)

Describing their sound as « Porridge n'Bass » Knut Guribye of Automat.piss.tool uses theremin, sampler, synthesisers and various effects to create his very own variations of extreme electronic sound. Although regularly accompanied by other musicians on stage, Guribye will give a solo act at ZDB.

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Sergej Pristas Nicolina Pristas (Croatia)
Deviations and Translations

The lecture will present the work of BADco and the project Zagreb Capital of Europe 3000, explaining the individual positions and interconnected projects of its various partner organisations. Sergei and Nikolina will talk about the relation between centre and margin, the question of (non)actuality and the concept of translation as a system shift, rather than an act of "translating" from one point to another. They will also touch upon the question of des-identification in a local and in an international context.

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Bojana Kunst (Slovenia)
Collaboration, possibility and inhabitancy

In my lecture I would like to talk about several issues related to 'collaboration'. How are we working together, when working together is also tightly linked with possibility? What do we share in our work and how do we inhabit places when collaborating? What is the connection between collaboration and re-articulation of the space? What has collaboration to do with the alternative production of knowledge, emotional tonality and incoherent inhabitancy?  

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Luciana Fina (Italy / Portugal)
The Encounter (film 60 min + presentation)

Do you know what I see from the window of my house?
Bags of charcoal! Many bags of charcoal. Lots and lots, really...
(Sérgio, dancer from Maputo)

Lisbon, 7th International Encounter Dançar o que é nosso - a month of practical 'laboratories' and seminars about interculturalism and the performing arts, organised by Danças na Cidade, and led by anthropologist André Lepecki and invited choreographers and dance teachers.   Fifty-four artists bring their culture, bodies and movements from Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Portugal, Mozambique, South Africa, Great Britain, Brazil, Belgium...

Through performance practices, they question the crystallisation of cultures and the dead-end of non-communication. They try to incorporate different movement experiences. I accompany them, interrogate myself, film and look for images that are theirs.

Luciana Fina

Direction: Luciana Fina
Editing: Marcelo Felix, Luciana Fina
Sound: Luciana Fina
Executive production: Catarina Saraiva, Hugo Quinta
Production: DANÇAS NA CIDADE / LAF
Co-production: A Dois - RTP (Portuguese Radio Television)
Support: Ministry of Culture - Instituto das Artes, European Commission - Culture 2000 Program

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Filipa Francisco (Portugal)
Lecture of lists ... (45 min)

The idea was to organize a method of work where the separation between the rehearsal and the play was simply non-existent. Each rehearsal would be a (possible) play. Each play a rehearsal for other possibilities. This was the method we have found to answer the challenge of creating a work that would be linked to its surroundings. Hence this work does not have a fixed shape or a pre-determined ending. We have worked on Paul Carters' ideas about territory and performance, namely when he demonstrates that only a stupid levelling of the ground where the performance is permits its rehearsal: an isolated representation. We did not want a levelling of the ground. What we wanted was to make an attentive topography to the different spaces that surrounded us, to the close and involving spaces of the several studios where we worked during a three month period, to the urban city space, to the violent political space of an America involved in an open war, to the economical, critical affective spaces, and Filipa's aesthetical references. Then Filipa created an open system: to dedicate herself to never ending lists. This are less connected to the notion of obsession that to Deleuze and Guattari's idea of "program". Lists, Listing, and its elaboration, identification, writing, and recitation hour after hour, in and out of the studio, with or without an audience, are no more than possibilities for the mapping of existences ( more or less familiar, more or less probable, more or less heavy, more or less ludicrous, more or less false) in our particularly burdened times.

André Lepecki, New York, November 2003

A work by: Filipa Francisco
In collaboration with André Lepecki during a stay in New York made possible by a grant of the Gabinete de Relações Culturais Internacionais of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture and with Carlota Lagido and Cristina Piedade in Lisbon
Promo video: João Pinto
Production: Jangada de Pedra / André Camecelha
Support: CENTA
Thanks: Ricardo Freitas, EIRA
Project financed by the Ministry of Culture

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Cláudia Müller (Brasil)
Dois do seis de setenta (20 min)

"If my skin is the limit, is a scar on the inside or on the outside?"

"Dois do seis de setenta" is about the many ambiguities inherent to the concepts of beauty and strangeness, the normal and the unusual, as they are revealed in the juxtaposition of the formal beauty of the body and the signs of its constant disintegration: marks and scars, the body turned inside out, its organs showing. The body as an inhabited space, a register of experiences, material for the creation of aesthetic ideals, and, at the same time, proof of the finitude of existence.  

Creation and interpretation: Cláudia Müller
Assistance: Alex Cassal
Sound track: Marcio Meirelles
Voice: Rodrigo Maia
Light: José Geraldo Furtado
Photography: Löis Lancaster
Video: Cavi Borges, Paulo Mendel
Support: Centro Cultural José Bonifácio Cavídeo, Rumos Dança 2003 - Itaú Cultural

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Stradas (Portugal)

Three musicians - voice, Portuguese guitar and bass, played in a rather unconventional way - create their sound on the basis of fado, ska, pop and the Cape Verdian funáná. Stradas present a likeable deconstruction of the usual canons of musical creation and reinvention of song. The expressiveness of the musicians create a special atmosphere.

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Koktail of live mixed filmzz by Edgar Pêra (Portugal)

ZDB presents yet another cineymprovize video-session by Edgar Pêra as Cine-Arkivist Johnny Gomez and João Lima on Portuguese guitar. Portugal, the remix that defines us, the roots, the stuff that dreams are made of... Fados and guitar in cinescope. What is the future of Portuguese Guitar? Could it have the same destiny as Portugal? While the musician responds, films are being projected . 

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Ana Borralho (Lagos, 1972) e João Galante (Luanda, 1968) met while they were studying visual arts at AR.CO and worked as actors/co-authors in theatre company Olho. Since 2002, they have co-created various pieces, including Mistermissmissmister (2002), Glim e Gló (2002), I Love you (2003) and no body never mind, 001(2004). They are currently working on their new piece, no body never mind, 002 .

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Andrea Sonnberger (Austria/Alemanha) born in Upper Austria, was educated as a dancer in Vienna and Munich. She was engaged as a performer in Austria, Germany Switzerland, Russia and Lithuania. Since 1996, as a member of Tanztendenz München, she has been working on her own choreography and ideas. 1999 she was award winner of the Prix du Festival Cour des Capucins in Luxembourg. 2003 she got a scholarship from Munich and founded the community ?umluft" with Eva Forler and Helmut Ott .

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Bojana Cvejic Performer and performance theorist, currently researching for PhD degree (Belgrade University of Arts). Directed several independent music theatre performances in Belgrade and was a co-founder of Walking Theory performance group (YU). Collaborating with Jan Ritsema since 2000 with whom she made and performed several performances. Teaches performing arts theory at PARTS school and at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. Writes for magazines Walking Theory, Maska, Frakcija, New Sound, Musical Wave, Etcetera, etc .

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Bojana Kunst is philosopher, dramaturg and performing arts theoretician. She is a researcher at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and member of the editorial board of Maska magazine. In the year 2005 she works as a guest professor at the Institute of applied theatre science, University of Giessen (Germany).

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Claudia Müller studied ballet, modern and contemporary dance. Worked as a performer in Germany and Brazil. Member of Lia Rodrigues Company from 1998 to 2000. Since 2000 develops independent projects with 3M Performance. Her individual pieces and collaboration projects with artist such as Gary Stevens or Robert Pacitti were programmed at several international festivals, including Dança en Trânsito (Rio de Janeiro), A8 (Torres Vedras), Panorama Rio Arte (Rio de Janeiro) and In-Presentable (Madrid).

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Cristina Blanco graduated in physical theatre at RESAD Madrid and studied flamenco, contemporary dance, tap dancing, clown and cinema acting. In 2002 she co-founds the Depieteatro Company, whose first piece "Desiertos de Arena y Gente" is premiered at Escena Contemporánea Festival 2003 and played at BIACS International festival 2004. Her first solo "cUADRADO_fLECHA_pERSONA qUE cORRE" is presented at In-Presentable Festival (Madrid, 2004), in Geneva, Granada and at Madrid em Danza.

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Dani Lima studied contemporary dance, acrobatics and contact-improvisation, among other techniques. Since 1997 she has her own company, with which she has created various productions (Piti/1998; Nato/1999; Digital Brazuca/2001; Vaidade/2001; Falam as partes do todo?/2003) and administered workshops throughout Brazil. As a choreographer she looks into the themes of identity, memory, perception, fragmentation and contamination, investing in hybrid experiences in dance. She is teaching Dance at the UniverCidade/RJ and has a master's degree in Theatre.

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Filipa Francisco studied dance in Lisbon and received a grant to study in New York with Trisha Brown Dance Company and at Lee Strassberg Institut. She worked as a dancer with various choreographers, did movement direction for theatre and opera and realized a dance education program in collaboration with Centa. Founded A Torneira Company, with which she created various   independent projects. Her pieces "Nu Meio", "Nariz do meu pai", "There I Stand", "Transgarden", "Petróleo" and "Riso" were presented at festivals in Portugal and abroad.

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Goran Sergej Pristas graduated from the Zagreb Academy of Drama Arts in 1993. Since 1994 teaching at the Academy of Drama Art in Zagreb, now as the assistant professor. In 2002, he obtained his MA. From 1990 to 1992, he was artistic director of the SKUC theatre. In 1993 a dramaturge and member of the artistic council of &TD theatre. 1994 - 1999 a dramaturge in Monta?stroj - a theatre group led by choreographer and producer Borut Separovi?. He has written a few short scripts for documentary films. As a dramaturge, he participated in numerous dance and theatre productions. In 1999, he produced Confessions - his first performance as a director. Artistic director, producer, dramaturge and performer in internationally presented and awarded group BADco. Program coordinator in Centre for Drama Art since 1995. President of the board of CDU since 2.000 . Since 1996 editor-in-chief of Frakcija, a magazine for the performing arts (one of the most highly respected performing magazines in Europe). One of the initiators of the project Zagreb - Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000.

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Gustavo Ciríaco Brazilian, dancer-choreographer, political scientist, graduated in Contemporary Dance at Escola Angel Vianna, Rio de Janeiro. In 1995, forms Dupla de Dança Ikswalsinats, with Frederico Paredes. Performs in festivals in Brazil and abroad and creates international projects such as Meeting in the Middle. Member of the collective Contágio and of the improvisation group Coletivo Improviso. Since 2003, he is co-curator of Condança and teaches at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Escola Angel Vianna and at Faculdade de Dança of the UniverCidade.

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Idoia Zabaleta studied dance and biology. Participates in various Improvisation projects. In 1990 creates the Dance and Body Language association, with Mariaje Ariznabarreta. Collaborates with electro-acoustic lab KLEM. In 2000 creates the piece "La Puta Inocencia", presented at Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Saint-Denis. In 2004 directs the piece "Gau bakar" and takes part in the project "The Journey"- an encounter of artists of Mediterranean. Director of the dance centre Muelle 3 in Bilbao, also teaches dance at the University of the Basque Country.

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Jan Kopp was born in 1970 in Frankfurt. Since 1990, lives and works in Paris. Jan Kopp's main (but not his only) areas of intervention are urban space and the Web. Both are potentially public spaces in which exchange can occur between strangers. Kopp's urban interventions are defined on the basis of an analysis of the local situation, and manifest a certain preference for waste land. Such sites may temporarily become home to flowering poppies (Ivry-sur-Seine in 1993 and the Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, in 1994) or can be used to make an inventory of all the things that grow there spontaneously or are introduced from outside - that is to say vegetation and various forms of detritus brought by man and by the wind (intervention in Metz in 1997 with the Lorraine FRAC). Usually, Kopp starts with the little details around us, little events which we ignore, what is there but does not expect to be noticed. For him, these are the starting points for a series of modifications, of reconfigurations towards an intervention that is designed to be set once again in urban spaces (visible projection at night in a café on Place Saint Sulpice, Paris, in June 1996, or Vos mots in Enghien).

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Karima Mansour studied at London Contemporary Dance School   and is free lance dancer and choreographer. In 1999 she formed Ma'at Company, for which she has signed six choreographic performances that were presented in international festivals in France, Holland, Italy, Belgium and elsewhere. She has also collaborated as a professional performer with several international choreographers.

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Miguel Pereira studied dance in Lisbon, Paris and New York and collaborated with Francisco Camacho, Vera Mantero and Jérôme Bel. Participated in the theatre piece and the film "António, um rapaz de Lisboa" by Jorge Silva Melo. He has toured Europe and Brazil with the award winning piece "Antonio Miguel", presented work at Danças Na Cidade 2002 and was object of a mini retrospective, organised by Transforma. For Transitions Dance Co / Laban Centre he created the piece "Transitions" and in June 2005 he premiered the group piece "Corpo de Bailado" at Culturgest.

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Nikolina Prista? graduated from the Zagreb School for Rhythm and Dance in 1994, worked with Kilina Cremona and took various dance workshops with ao. Martin Sonderkamp, Lanonima Imperial, DV8, Russel Maliphant, David Zambrano and Hooman Shariffi. From 1994 to 2000 she was a member of the Zagreb Dance Company. In 2003 she graduated at the University of Zagreb (English Language and Literature / Comparative Literature). Together with Pravdan Devlahovi? (dancer, choreographer), Ivana Sajko (dramaturg) and Goran Sergej Prista? (dramaturg), she co-founds BADco, a nucleus of authors working together on diverse projects. Between 2000 and 2004 the company has created various dance pieces. Choreography 2 is her first independant work and was rewarded the Hooge Huys prize for young choreographers at the Aerodance/Julidans festival in Amsterdam in July 2002 .  

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Sodja Zupanc Lotker works as a dramaturge for theatre and dance, amongst others with Cristina Maldonado, Halka Tresnakova, Lhotakova + Soukup Dance Company, Unit, Krepsko, Perseverance Theatre and Thaddeus Phillips. She is also programming director of Prague Quadrennial International Exhibition of Stage Design and Theatre Architecture 2007. Works for Theatre Institute Prague as creative producer of the promotion program of Czech theatre and other international exchange projects and has curated a number of theatre symposium, workshops, meetings and seminars.

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