ARUS FEMIA
© Arlindo Camacho
ARUS FEMIA
ARUS FEMIA, whose translation from Guinean Creole into English is “female rice”, is inspired by the women of Guinea-Bissau, whose hair came to be seen as granaries of ancestral wisdom — human, botanical, and spiritual. In the New World, the women shook their heads, and from their hair, seeds were released to fertilise the earth.
The performance premiered in 2025: in March at Teatro Campo Alegre (Porto, Portugal), in April at the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian (Lisbon, Portugal), in May at Teatro do Bairro (Lisbon, Portugal), and later that month at the Franco-Bissau-Guinean Cultural Centre (Bissau, Guinea-Bissau), as part of the 1st Biennial of Art and Culture of Bissau by MoAC Biss Foundation.
© João Octávio Peixoto
ARUS FEMIA
I dedicate this performance to Ota, of the Cacheu River,
to Andan, of the pastures of Mansoa,
and to the rural communities of Guinea-Bissau.
I'm infinitely grateful to Miguel de Barros, Erikson Mendonça, Ruguiato Baldé, Mário Sá, Nair Noémia Costa, Idrissa Baldé, and all the friends from Tiniguena, and to the brilliant ARUS FEMIA team — Xullaji, Vânia Doutel Vaz, Neusa Trovoada, Camila Reis, Carolina Caramelo, Cláudia Sevivas, António Castelo, Lentim Nhabaly, Albertinho Monteiro, Dionezia Cá, Urbício Vieira, Aoaní, Izária Sá, Ulé Baldé, Jorge Gonçalves, Mariana Desidério, Arlindo Camacho.
Going back 400 years, countless Bissau-Guineans were kidnapped, transported in the holds of ships, and enslaved in the Americas. In the face of such a brutal ordeal, women devised the unthinkable — and yet most powerful — of strategies: hiding African rice seeds (Oryza glaberrima) in their braids. And on unfamiliar soil, they had the mastery to make those seeds germinate and proliferate. Today, black rice covers thousands of hectares of landscape in the New World. Through this audacious gesture, those women carried within their bodies spiritual philosophies that conveyed ancestral codes and conduct, allowing them to preserve the bond with their origins and at the same time make them last over time in a strange territory and in extremely hostile conditions.
© João Octávio Peixoto
Part of the research process for the ARUS FEMIA project took place in the interior of Guinea-Bissau, where traditional rice farming is practised, mainly in salt water. Locally, these rice fields are known as bolanhas de água salgada. The bolanhas are laid out in symmetrical rows, separated by meticulously built dikes, designed to maintain the delicate balance between the saltwater brought in by the sea and the freshwater from the rains — a balance that allows the rice to thrive. However, this balance has long been deteriorating. The combination of being a low-lying island territory made up of more than 80 islands, along with a climate that now alternates between periods of heavy rainfall and drought, makes Guinea-Bissau one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change — despite its minimal contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (globally, the African continent accounts for only about 4% of such emissions). Coastal communities — which represent over 70% of the Bissau-Guinean population — are increasingly unable to sustain their main means of livelihood: family - and community - based agriculture. How will Guinea-Bissau and its nearly 2 million citizens survive? Relocate? Migrate? But how, when free mobility is a privilege afforded only to some — those whose passports are issued by countries that traffic in greenhouse gases and practice biopiracy?
The chants, the music, the dance, the stories and legends about the ancestors and the irans (spirits/divinities) that sound in the bolanhas, the ceremonies that precede planting and harvesting, are portals to reaffirm hope — a hope that is continuously performed, just like in this performance, evocative of those women whose fertilising power spreads beyond their wombs and whose hair is a granary full of ancestral wisdom — human, botanical, and spiritual; a show that presents a world almost entirely immersed in water — perhaps a Guinea-Bissau set in the too-near future? Perhaps Benin, Senegal, or an island country in the Pacific? Perhaps Portugal, the Netherlands, or the USA? A converging world of times — the past, the present, those yet to come, and the immemorial too — where its inhabitants — the performers — are incessantly searching for trance modes that allow them to alter their bodies and voices so that they can exist in water.
ARUS FEMIA, an inexorable taticography carried out by a community of performers or irans (spirits/divinities) or kankurans (guardian spirits of initiation rituals) or humanfibians, a performance or a sorcery fulfilled in solemnity, where dystopian scenarios are obsolete mirages.
Here, one must sink in order to remember, one must remember in order to forget.
Zia Soares
Direction, staging, text Zia Soares
Performers Albertinho Monteiro, Aoaní, Dionezia Cá, Izária Sá, Ulé Baldé, Urbício Vieira, Xullaji
Music, sound design Xullaji
Choreographic movement Vânia Doutel Vaz
Set design Neusa Trovoada
Lighting design Carolina Caramelo
Video António Castelo, Lentim Nhabaly
Video design Cláudia Sevivas
Illustration and 2D animation Camila Reis
Costume Neusa Trovoada
Braiding Mariana Desidério
Translation into Kriol Miguel de Barros
Voice-over Erikson Mendonça, Mamadu Alimo Djaló, Miguel de Barros, Ruguiato Baldé
Voice-over and Nhinguilins off-stage Tabato Community
Sound engineer Jorge Gonçalves
Production management Camila Reis
Research support TINIGUENA
Set construction Marco Peixoto, João Fortuna, Silvério Martinho Cabral, João Pinho
Set design support Mariana Frazão
Assistance Idrissa Djau Júnior, Jorsildo Bandjaqui, Malado Djaló, Mário Correia, Rosi Fernandes, Salvador Júnior, Sidney Vieira
Production Sowing_arts
Co-production Netos de Bandim, Teatro Municipal do Porto, STATION service for contemporary dance
Support Lagos City Council / Centro Cultural de Lagos, Lisbon City Council, Casa da Dança, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, GROWTH, Largo Residências / Jardins da Bombarda, O Rumo do Fumo, Polo Cultural Gaivotas Boavista, RDP África, Teatro do Bairro
Project funded by Portuguese Republic – Culture | DGARTES – Directorate-General for the Arts
Zia Soares is an artist supported by apap – FEMINIST FUTURES
Special thanks to: António Quintino, Auditório Camões, Angruman Community, Cabedu Community, Calaque Community, Contuboel Community, Cumuda Community, Djobel Community, Elia Community, Mansaba Sutu Community, Saridjai Community, Sintchã Sutu Community, Suzana Community, Tabato Community, Cooperativa Agropecuária de Jovens Quadros, Federação KAFO – Banco de Sementes Tradicionais de Arroz, Joana Quintino, Karim Djara, Livígia Monteiro, Mamadu Alimo Djaló, Maria Reis, Nakasadarte RAMIRO NAKA & Afro Gumbe Show, Nú Barreto, Salvador Bandjaqui, Vladimir Bidam Quadé.
PublicationsPúblico/ Ípsilon
BANTUMEN/ CAM Gulbenkian
Bienal MoAC Biss
SIC Notícias
RTP