From Balsa to the Moon is the final performance of the Soni Drom project, with Filipa Francisco as artistic director and Marta Coutinho as assistant artistic director.

Over the course of eight months, Soni Drom brought together children and young people from the Balsa neighbourhood, pupils from the Escola Lugar Presente, musicians, dancers and guest artists in a series of workshops, rehearsals, residencies and collective creation. The project originated within the Romani community in Balsa, but the group gradually expanded as new participants joined and people from different backgrounds came together.

The work explored the fields of dramatic expression, lyric writing, movement, music, physical expression, theatre and dramaturgy. Each stage introduced new material and new working relationships. The performance took shape from what was experimented with in the workshops, revisited during the residencies and developed further in the rehearsals.

From the Balsa to the Moon stems from a question posed to the participants at the start of the project: “What are your dreams?” Among the various answers, two wishes expressed by Delinha, the youngest member of the group, stand out: to be able to celebrate her birthday at the Balsa with her friends and to be the first woman to go to the Moon. It is from these two wishes that the production finds its central theme.

Between a birthday cake and a rocket, the show is built around the Balsa as a concrete place, experienced by those who grow up there, spend time there or join the project. The Moon emerges as an image of desire and as a measure of the distance between what exists and what we still hope to make possible. The path between the two is gradually mapped out on stage through voices, gestures, rhythms, movements and encounters between people who, outside this context, would be unlikely to cross paths in quite the same way.

On stage, children and young people from Balsa, pupils from the Escola Lugar Presente, musicians and performers from different backgrounds come together. This composition does not stray from the project’s starting point. It shows what has happened throughout the process: an initial group that transforms as new members join and through the work carried out collectively. From Balsa to the Moon gives shape to this journey.