Francisco Thiago Cavalcanti & um cavalo disse mamãe
CANTAR

- 21.11 — 22.11 2025
- Performances
- world premiere
- ages 6+
- 1H20 MIN
A collective journey where singing becomes shelter, protest, and a promise of the future.
Eight people resist and survive in a collapsing, violent world. As they embark on a long journey on foot, they make room for imagination and enchantment — like a decaying circus with melancholic yet hopeful performers. And they sing.
They sing to ward off pain, to find relief. They sing like Gal Costa on Cantar, her 1974 album released at the height of Brazil’s military dictatorship. They sing for freedom — in times of war, intolerance, and violence, when societies and their States revert to authoritarian politics, silencing and death. They sing even if the circus loses its tent, if the sea floods the cities, if humanity forgets how to love.
Living is dangerous. So is being part of a community where difference and dissonance provoke crises, oppression, and conflict, but also new understandings of what it means to co-exist. What concessions are needed to walk together?
According to Greek mythology, on the star Tau Ceti — in the constellation of the whale, twelve light-years from Earth — there is a remedy for sadness. Maybe that’s where they’re headed.
Fanzine
Teach me to sing
Teach me to fly
Teach me to sing love
digital version fanzine CANTAR
Credits
Created, performed and directed by Francisco Thiago Cavalcanti Co-created and performed by Bárbara Cordeiro, Clarissa Rêgo, Francisca Pinto, Mayara Baptista, Sara Paternesi and Yaw Tembe Assistant director Francisca Pinto Collaboration Piero Ramella Original music Yaw Tembe and Mayara Baptista Vocal advisor Laya External eye Ntando Cele Produced by Alkantara, Culturgest Co-produced by Alkantara, TMP - Teatro Municipal do Porto Light desgin and technical direction Ska Batista e Josefa Pereira (matéria leve) (criação); Leticia Skrycky (acompanhamento e mentoria) Naiana Padial (escrita sobre o projeto lumínico) Documentation and social media Walesca Timmen Pictures Walesca Timmen and Sara Giraldo Executive producer Sinara Suzin (Alkantara) Creation supported OPART, E.P.E. /Estúdios Victor Córdon Co-production residency O Espaço do Tempo Supported by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Goethe Institut - Culture Moves Europe, La Caldera, Companhia Instável, PAF (Performing Arts Forum), Forum Dança, Centro Cultural da Malaposta, Ilê do Mestre Peixinho, N´goma Capoeira Angola, Central Elétrica
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Francisco Thiago Cavalcanti (1984) is a Brazilian artist working in dance, theater, and performance. He holds a bachelor's degree in Dance, a master’s degree in Education, and is pursuing a PhD in Modern Literatures and Cultures. Queer, non-white, and neurodiverse, he began his artistic journey at the age of 9. He is the founder and artistic director of the independent, multidisciplinary, and transboundary collective “um cavalo disse mamãe”, based in Lisbon. Living between Portugal and Brazil, his research focuses, among other topics, on non-human animal...

um cavalo disse mamãe is an independent, multidisciplinary, and cross-border collective that emerged in Portugal in 2022, following the meeting of Francisco Thiago Cavalcanti, Piero Ramella, Bárbara Cordeiro, and Francisca Pinto. Within the context of the Advanced Programme for Creation in the Performing Arts 5, promoted by Forum Dança and curated in this edition by choreographer and researcher João Fiadeiro, the four artists created the piece Também se matam cavalos. Since then, they have been developing ongoing research that addresses, among other themes, the...
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