Luminous drowned
Luminoso Afogado
© Pauliana Valente Pimental
LUMINOSO AFOGADO is based on the poetic text by Al Berto. It was adapted and directed by Zia Soares, premiered in Lisbon at Teatro da Trindade in December 2016. In Lisbon it was also performed at the Auditório Fernando Pessa, 2017, and at Espaço Alkantara, 2020. In 2017 it was performed at the Centro de Artes de Sines and in 2018 at the Mindelact Festival in Cape Verde.
Zia Soares revisits Al Berto twenty years after having worked with him at the time of his death on an adaptation and staging of his book “Lunário” – later the play would be called “O Canto do Noitibó”. At the time, Zia Soares was working on her first staging and Al Berto was working on his last artistic project.
Luminoso Afogado is a kind of shadow line in which – when confronted with a mirror, with death and the passing of time – one fails on recognizing oneself, lasting between being what one is and other irretrievable and absent. It’s a performance where “silence is definitive”, where one sways between life and death, memory and the most absolute oblivion. A plunge where breathing is suspended in another time, another place.
The scenery/costume is a sculptural object made of used fishing nets that are always donated by fishermen in the locality where the performance is presented. The nets interweave in harmony and disharmony with the actor’s voice and movements, at times changing into a shapeless and beautiful dress, at others in a dark and grotesque sea.
© Grace Ribeiro
© Abdel Queta Tavares
Text by Al Berto
Adapted and directed by Zia Soares
Performed by Gio Lourenço, Xullaji, Zia Soares
Music by Xullaji
Lighting design Eduardo Abdala
Scenography by Neusa Trovoada, Zia Soares
Movement by Maurrice
Costumes by Inês Morgado, Neusa Trovoada
Sound design by soundslikenuno
Photography by Abdel Queta Tavares, Grace Ribeiro, Pauliana Valente Pimentel
Graphic design by Neusa Trovoada
Produced by Teatro GRIOT
Publications
Alkantara
Público
Sábado
Time Out