Modos de Ocupar ⁄ Dedos na ferida, mãos na cultura (Ways of Occupying ⁄ Fingers in the wound, hands in the culture)

Teatro Municipal do Porto (Rivoli), 23 September 2020

Moderator Pedro Santos Guerreiro

Participants Marta Martins (Executive Director of Artemrede), Paulo Brandão (Artistic Director of Theatro Circo), Pedro Quintela (Sociologist, consultant and researcher), Rui Moreira (Mayor of Porto), Teresa Coutinho (Creator and actress, member of Açcão Cooperativista) and Zia Soares (Director and actress, artistic director of Teatro GRIOT).

‘In this biennium that we (Teatro Griot) were not supported, despite being eligible, (...) there is an assessment by the jury that highlights that the company's work is largely developed in ‘disadvantaged neighbourhoods’ and little in ‘prominent spaces’. (...) Evaluators who manage to look at the world in this way, in which there are ‘disadvantaged neighbourhoods’ and there are ‘prominent spaces’... there is a huge divide here and an absolutely anachronistic view of the world. (...) The perpetuation of this type of evaluation ends up surreptitiously contributing to the creation of a society that is heading towards a very dangerous place. A society that begins to see itself as living in a space where there are disadvantaged neighbourhoods and prominent spaces is absolutely worrying.’

‘When we talk about democratising, there's almost an inversion of perspective here, because one thing is democratising, another thing is democracy. In absolute terms, a democracy doesn't need to democratise.’

Zia Soares