The Traveller at Home

Passageira em Casa is an intermedia and inter-disciplinary maritime performance inspired by the journey to define the concept of “home”. The narrative is a partially fictionalized and personalized account of the Maritime history of Portugal, enacted by a dancer, a vocal performer, a live video performer, a live electronic composer, and other artists…all of or children of immigration. The text of the project is inspired by Camões, Os Lusíadas. The text, or “lyrics”, of the project are developed by the director, with poet Ian Colbert, based on Os Lusiadas; as well as Hawaiian chant, the directors ancestors diaries and memoirs, and the director’s own writing. The project is inspired by various texts related to maritime journeys and Portuguese history and culture. Context specific in varying historical, cultural, lingual, architectural, and personal aspects, the project has a conceptual anchor, but will always be born new as it travels to new locations and situations as an epic Exquisite Corpse.

“More than a few Portuguese of my generation relate the story of as a child looking to the map of Portugal hanging in their classrooms as a face…Spain being the hair and neck…the face of Portugal in profile looking away from the known land, out to sea, past sea, to new.”(“Portuguese Modernism Unbounded: a Poetics for the ‘Border Identity’” – Maria José Canelo). Somewhere in my bloodline was this experience. It leads them cross-land and two oceans to Hawaii. My mother looked back the way they came, I looked beyond where she led me. Now a bloodline becomes a circle. But is that a return? Return again implies a home base. But this speaks of many lifetimes. Can one’s ancestry become a personal history? Could this feel like a return home? Could this feel like a home?”

 

The Portuguese version to be premiered in Spring 2013 at Teatro Viriato in Viseu, Portugal

The Australian version to be created and premiered in Spring 2013 at the iAir Residency through RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/39332526[/vimeo]

Artistic Director and Composition: Maile Colbert

Support: Direção Geral das Artes, Portugal

Production Director: Luis Costa

Production Assistant: Carina Martins

Production: Cross the Pond and Binaural/Nodar

Text: Ian Colbert and Maile Colbert

Sound Design and Compostition: Rui Costa and Maile Colbert

Dramaturgy: Rui Catalão

Choreography: Wanda Gala

Dance and Choreography: Rafaela Salvador

Lighting Design and Video: Maile Colbert

Vocal Performer: Anna Hints

Video Assistance: Sara Morais

Artist Residencies:

Experimental Intermedia, NYC, USA

Nodar Rural Lab, Nodar, Portugal

Centro de Experimentação Artística, Fábrica da Pólvora, Oeiras, Portugal

Espaço PerFormas, Aveiro, Portugal

 

Author(s)