Sounds by Minor
Coimbra has a new electronic music festival. It is called Minor, but the ambition is not small. “Committed to the unknown, difference and diversity”, it intends to function as a stage where “those who do not fit into the dominant scale will find shelter”, reads the note of intentions. More: it promises some never-before-seen and sometimes unique shows.
For this, it receives KMRU & Aho Ssan with Límen, Jonathan Uliel Saldanha with the “spectral sound piece” Hyper Ikonostasis (commissioned by Minor), Tropa Macaca with new music and video, “the overwhelming dramatic work” of Bella Báguena for the first time in Portugal and an unpublished work by Cavernancia, the project of photographer Pedro Roque. O Menor is programmed by Alexandre Lemos and produced by Teatro Académico Gil Vicente.
O rhino in the room
Ricardo Aibéo stages one of the most fascinating texts by Eugène Ionesco and the theater of the absurd. Written in 1959, rhino it is an allegory in which the inhabitants of a place are “contaminated” by the passage of a rhinoceros that transforms them into animals like itself. Between the lines, it brings warnings about conformism and totalitarianism, to which the memories of the Nazi rise will not be alien.
If the play is now staged, it is because “it resonates, for many and diverse reasons, with the difficult times we have been experiencing”, underlines the press release, “gaining a new topicality by questioning themes such as the uniformity of thought and the growing dehumanization of society”. In addition to acting, Aibéo is part of the cast, alongside David Almeida, Dinis Gomes, Duarte Guimarães, Graciano Dias, Rita Durão and Sofia Marques.
fans to battle
At the 43rd edition, Fantasporto changes its position. It is in the new Batalha that it is installed with a selection of 86 films from 30 countries – the majority, in national premiere. The marathon officially opens with the isolation-torror-torror in Shepherdby the British Russell Owen, and ends with Once Upon a Time in the Future: 2121an “Orwellian” projection by the Turkish Serpil Altin.
In the vastness of the program there are also Immersion (new work by Takashi Shimizu, winner of the festival’s Grand Prize last year), a retrospective of Filipino cinema and the exhibition of restored prints of darklandsby Julian Richards, and Mute Witness, by Anthony Waller. Off the screen, a novelty called Movie Talkswhich translates into an invitation to get-togethers at the bar, after the sessions.
Literally and with chemistry
Antonio Rosado on the piano. The Gulbenkian Orchestra in concert. Old scores by Ensemble Fiori and Fuoco, with soprano Orlanda Velez Isidro. Chamber music by the clarinetists of the Vintage Quartet. The Musaico choir harmonies applied to Beatles songs. Drummer and composer Mário Costa at the head of a quartet, with the album chromosome. The song of the rural woman represented by the Cramol. Sounds of the União Taveirense Philharmonic.
And yet the sketches in pocket words and lectures involving chemistry and letters, with Nuno Maulide and Lídia Jorge, respectively. It is Antena 2 Festival that once again makes “proof of life of the diversity of contents (and their interpreters)” that are shown on public radio.
In bluesy tones
Vila do Conde is once again home to blues in various shades and nationalities. For its seventh edition, the Villa Sessions festival reserves four days of concerts, joined by masterclassescontests, workshops and other activities.
A poster goes up to the stage that goes as much to Mali by Baba Sissoko & Mediterranean Blues as to Spain by the multifaceted guitarist Fede Aguado, also drinking from the energy of the German trio Muddy What?, the youth of the Irish Gráinne Duffy and the teachings of the award-winning Irish singer-songwriter Dom Martin, among others.