“Barro” results from a partnership between the Municipality of Arganil, Mundo in Reboliço and several local artistic, cultural and social institutions. Directed by Filipa Francisco and Hugo Cruz, it was developed over several months, involving associations and local cultural agents, as well as people residing in the municipality aged 10 to 85, totalling more than 50 participants.

Starting from the clay and its malleability, and the objects of our daily lives related to it, we recall invisible memories and sensations to tell poetic stories of a land similar to many other throughout the country in recent history, reinventing the spacetime of the present and seeking a projection into the future of these communities. But "Barro" also addresses environmental and political issues, like the role of factories in these territories, the process of industrialization and the way clay was key to certain areas, and how clay is something we take from the earth but don't know how to give it back.

The idea arose following a work started in 2022 by the municipality of Arganil to enable local cultural and artistic agents, as well as expand network collaborations in this area. One of the first results was the public presentation of the “Cultural Charter of Arganil” in April 2022, elaborated by its agents and the municipality. Some of the aspects identified in this letter refer to the need for the development of coproductions that involve the interaction between local cultural and artistic agents with each other, but also a cultural programme provided by these agents in dialogue with proposals external to the territory and the development of training initiatives of these agents in different phases of cultural production.

After a training initiative carried out by the municipality came the idea of ​​making a performance to implemented in practice all the knowledge transmitted, by inviting Hugo Cruz and Filipa Francisco to develop the project “Barro”.

The goal was to promote a wider involvement in an integrated  process of collective creation in its different aspects - creation, production, technique, costumes and set design. We established a space for experimentation as training, deepening local know how and encouraging network collaboration.

The creative process underwent various stages: preparation and presentation, followed by a long period of research with interviews with an historian  and former workers of local — and now closed — ceramic factories, as well as text and photos. This research was shared with the participants during rehearsals. Then came the score: how can this research be embodied and result in a dramaturgy with beginning, middle and end. And finally, the rehearsals in the former Cerâmica Arganilense, an old factory now restored as a multipurpose cultural building.

We used clay, roof tiles and bricks as a stimulus to arouse a series of improvisations and narratives to create poetic images that make the show. “Barro” is the creative result of a core group of participants, summoning distinct areas of creation, like dance, theatre, music and video, conducting the audience in a journey through the space of the old factory, where clay as a matter is the pretext for unlikely encounters, reinventing what has been the relationship of humans with clay, earth and nature.

Free admission with limited capacity

Phone reservations 235 200 135 / 235 200 140

Tickets at the Municipal Library of Arganil, Alberto Martins de Carvalho Library and Municipal Pool