Ana Borralho & João Galante in residence at Espaço Alkantara

Techno-Zombies operates at the threshold between realities — where flesh meets code, and the visible is haunted by the spectral. Drawing from the aesthetics of science fiction, the immersive logic of video games, and post-human discourses, the piece opens up a space of instability: a zone where perception fractures, presence multiplies, and reality teeters on the edge of collapse.

We begin with the premise that a single space can contain multiple layers of existence. Like moving through portals or game levels, we shift from the everyday to the supernatural, from flesh to algorithm. This sensory confusion — where dream and wakefulness, avatar and subject, blur into one — gives rise to a contemporary epic: stories crafted in an attempt to make sense of isolation, digital exhaustion, the collapse of memory, and the breakdown of the body.

A liminal zone where affect becomes ambiguous and identity dissolves into recursive loops. Bodies blur into mirages, while emotions are rendered into data streams, absorbed by algorithms.

Reality becomes porous — haunted by glitches, ghosts, and synthetic echoes. What is human is no longer stable; what is digital is no longer neutral. In this shifting terrain, presence becomes performance, memory becomes code, and intimacy is reprogrammed. Techno-Zombies invites us to inhabit this threshold — not to escape, but to feel what it means to be fractured, connected, and haunted in the age of endless simulation.

In this universe, characters do not explain themselves, nor do they reveal who they are. They are opaque, flickering figures, crossed by invisible forces. They are not full agents, but rather surfaces — interfaces — onto which we project our desires, our fears, our failures. They move in loops, like techno-zombies caught between channels, between timelines, between overlapping realities. They inhabit an undefined space.

Presentations

2026
31 October — Premiere — Teatro das Figuras (Faro, PT)
20 November — Centro Cultural de Lagos (Lagos, PT)

Credits

Dancers/co-creators of movement and actors Ana de Oliveira e Silva, Ana Freitas, Maria Antunes, Francisco Rolo, Lewis Seivwright, Ana Freitas Concept, Artistic Direction, Sound and Video Design, Space Ana Borralho & João Galante Early-Stage Movement Research Maria Antunes Light Design Joana Mário Original Soundtrack Coolgate aka João Galante Scene Photography: Lucas Damiani Dramaturgical Support Fernando Ribeiro Artistic Assistance Lucas Damiani, Tiago Gandra Production casaBranca Co-production Teatro das Figuras, Cineteatro Louletano, Câmara Municipal de Lagos Co-production Residency O Espaço do Tempo Support for Artistic Creation OPART, E.P.E./Estúdios Victor Córdon, Alkantara, O Rumo do Fumo, Forum Dança, Alma d’Arame

casaBranca is a structure funded by República Portuguesa – Cultura, Juventude e Desporto / Direcção-Geral das Artes

Bio

Ana Borralho and João Galante met while studying Fine Arts at AR.CO. As performers and co-creators they worked regularly with the theatre group OLHO.

Since 2002, they have collaborated as an artistic duo, creating works including Mistermissmissmister (2002), I Love You (2003), No Body Never Mind, 001 (2004), No Body Never Mind, 002 (2005), No Body Never Mind, 003 (2006), sexyMF (2007), I Put a Spell on You (2007/2008), Meatphysics (2008), Untitled, Still Life (2009), Meeting Room (2009), Artist's Cries (2010), World of Interiors (2010), Atlas (2011), Horizon Line (2012), Purgatory (2013), Here We Are (2014), There Is Only One Life and in It I Want Time to Build Myself and Destroy Myself (2015), Happiness Trigger (2017), Family Romance or Augmented Reality (2019), Time to Reflect (2021), Chatroom (2023), Louise Michel (2023), and The Centre of the World (2024).

Together with Mónica Samões, they developed the project No Jogo do Desejoou oChoque Frontal (workshops for young audiences, 2008), directed the documentary video Eu Não Tu (2009), and created the performance for children and young audiences A Linha ou O Deserto já não é uma casa vazia (2009). In 2022, they published Close-Up with Orfeu Negro, marking twenty years of artistic collaboration.

Since 2004, their work has been presented at international festivals in Portugal, France, Spain, Switzerland, Scotland, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Germany, Finland, Estonia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Greece, among others. They are founding members of the non-musicians' band Jimmie Durham and of the association casaBranca. They are also the artistic directors and co-curatores of Verão Azul, a transdisciplinary arts festival in the Algarve.