“Cristina Planas Leitão, created a triangulation between audience, performers and the dead body on stage, that explores the limits of comfort, not only from the performers in a physical level, but also of the observers in an emotional level, with situations that of so unexpected, almost leave us wanting to get off our chair and run to the stage.”
Ana Resende/ Ócio
FM [featuring mortuum]
Cristina Planas Leitão
2016
In FM [featuring mortuum] we assist to a return to the romantic conceptualism. The piece, poetic and familiar but uncanny makes us reflect about the presence of death in performance and theater as the place for all possibilities, even making the impossible become possible. In this piece about making believe there are two parallel objects, one live and one dead that becomes the central element. Loaded with multilayers and meaning it disarms us in an accessible but deep way, transcending the present moment to another extracorporeal but almost graspable one.
FM is an exploration of the real on stage; of how to believe in the fake, the faux and which artifacts can be used to induce certain feelings and emotions in the audience. How can death be interpreted in a way to evoke the feelings of the audience when the performer is right there, alive on stage?
How can that body betray the memory of the spectator. The illusion of death will be visible constructed in front of the audience but it should have the power, that once installed, should look real. Death is a constant in the piece. The piece insists in the death. Death and repetition. To die several times, to die daily, to die forever, to die forever and again like in yesterday’s performance.
“When the actor plays dead no one’s fooled for a moment. (…) No one thinks this is real. But at the same time there remains a strange charge to this game, a cultural and emotional electricity which crackles and sparks the air around the actor who lives-but-dies, or who lives but plays dead. The death scene. ”
Tim Etchells
FM [featuring mortuum] a coproduction of Teatro Municipal do Porto (PT) and received the Financial Support from Direção Geral das Artes / Portuguese Ministry of Culture; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Fundação GDA.
© Paulo Pimenta
© Paulo Pimenta
© Paulo Pimenta
© Paulo Pimenta
© Paulo Pimenta
© Paulo Pimenta
© Paulo Pimenta
© Paulo Pimenta
Performance dates
1 May 2016
Festival DDD - Dias da Dança, Palco Grande Auditório Rivoli
16 Jun 2016
Teatro Académico Gil Vicente, Coimbra (PT)
23 Jun 2016
Cine Teatro Avenida, Castelo Branco (PT)
7 Oct 2016
Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon (PT) – BoxNova
8 Oct 2016
Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon (PT) – BoxNova
18 Mar 2017
Teatro Ribeiro Conceição, Lamego (PT)
12 Oct 2019
Tenuta dello Scompiglio, Vorno (IT)**
13 Oct 2019
Tenuta dello Scopiglio, Vorno (IT)**
**With the support of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation [internationalization] - 2019
Credits
Concept & Artistic direction
Cristina Planas Leitão
Performance and co-creation
Cristina Planas Leitão & Valentina Campora + featuring
Featuring on stage & collaboration in the research
Catarina Miranda, Daniela Cruz, Jasmina Krizaj
Technical Direction & Light Design
Cárin Geada
Technical collaboration
João Teixeira
Original Music Creation
Flávio Rodrigues
Soundscape
Cristina P. Leitão
Sound design advise
Pedro Lima
Production & Diffusion
BAC/ Célia Machado, Joana Ferreira
Dramaturgical support
Victor Hugo Pontes, Joana von Mayer Trindade
Production
BACtéria / Cristina Planas Leitão
Coproduction Teatro
Municipal do Porto (PT)
Co-presenter
Centro de Arte de Ovar, Câmara Municipal de Ovar (PT)
Residencies & Support to the creation
Dance Ireland (IR) – International Associate Artist Programme; Dansateliers Rotterdam (NL); Centro Cultural de Ílhavo / Câmara Municipal de Ílhavo (PT); Teatro Nacional S. João (PT); O Espaço do Tempo (PT)
Project Conquering the studio
a time for research / Companhia Instável; Universidade do Porto (PT); Instituto Politécnico do Porto (PT)
Financial Support
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Portugal – Program for creation (dance); Programa de Apoio à Criação em Cinema, Dança, Teatro; Direcção Geral das Artes/ Secretaria de Estado da Cultura; Fundação GDA Direitos dos Artistas.
Previous research
at Devir-CAPa (PT) 2012 and Espaço On.Off/ Fábrica Asa – Sweet&Tender Collaborations Guimarães 2012 (PT)
Thanks to
Marlene Vilhena, Mara Andrade, Audrey Apers, Andy Moor, Cláudio Lima, Informática Lda.