Programme for children and youth
Concept and original music by Bruno Duarte
February 20th - 22nd, 2025, at Auditório Fernando Lopes-Graça, Almada (premiere)
In Ari's mind, each concern has a shape, weight and volume. It is like they are objects, invisible to the world, but overwhelming to those who carry them. Over time, the collection of these restless thoughts becomes a crown, an immense puzzle.
"Quimera" (Chimera) is the story of a silent struggle, fought from within, where each fragment carries the memory of the questions that Ari, and so many others ask about the future, justice, and what it means to grow up.
Inspired by real conversations with children and young people, this performance stands as an act of resistance and sharing. After all, to dismantle a chimera is a job that can never be done alone.
Concept, costumes and musical composition: Bruno Duarte
Co-creation and performance: Bruno Duarte, Inês Barros, Lúcia Salgueiro, Mariana Romão, Raquel Tavares and Vítor Afonso (artistic team from Companhia de Dança de Almada); Filipa Pereira (extracurricular internship)
Special participation: Joana Lopes (curricular internship)
Light design: Stageplot
Narration: Luís Malaquias
Rehearsal direction: Maria João Lopes
Acknowledgments: Inês Costa, Maria Lopes, Miguel Mendes, Rosa Figueiredo and Violeta Gonçalves
Bruno Duarte is a PhD student in Contemporary Art at the Universidade de Coimbra, has a Master Degree in Dance Teaching and a degree in Dance from Escola Superior de Dança (ESD) in Lisbon. He was a dancer and performer in Grupo Experimental de Dança (2011/2) and Quorum Ballet (2013). Since 2013, he has been a member of Companhia de Dança de Almada. He was co-producer and performer in the "P48" video dance (2012), presented at the 20th Quinzena de Dança de Almada, and "5" (2013), presented at the Caldas Late Night (Portugal), L'art difficile de filmer la danse (Belgium) and InShadow (Portugal) festivals, the latter winning the award for best videodance in competition - audience choice. As a creator, he presented "Metamorphosis" (2011/2), for Culturgest in partnership with ESD, "someone else ago" (2013), for Centro Cultural de Belém’s BOXNOVA programme, "L'Veltro" (2016), in co-production with Elson Marlon Ferreira, “Blömma” (2021) for Estufa, and for Companhia de Dança de Almada, "Riot" (2014), "Gaveston" (2016), "Fobos" (2017), “A Invenção da Resposta” (2018), in co-creation with Luís Malaquias, “SubRosa” (2018), “Inverno” (2019), “Noir” and “A Quiet Moment” (2020), and “Carbono” (2022). In this company, he is also the author of the Itinerant Choreographic Laboratory project, for which he created "Dentro do Abraço" (2016) and "SCENA" (2022). He’s participated in workshops and seminars by Mikael Fau and Pauline Journé (France), João da Silva (Brazil), Siri Dybwik (Norway), Jack Gallagher (USA) and David Zambrano (Venezuela), amongst others. As a choreographer/dance teacher he integrated the European projects CLASH! (2019/21) and Up2DANCE (2020/21). He has taught workshops at venues such as the Beijing Dance Theater (China), Giro8 Companhia de Dança (Brazil), FreeDance (Croatia), DNA (Portugal), amongst others. He’s been a guest teacher at Escola Superior de Dança (2016 and 2019), a teacher at Ca.DA Escola, and a guest choreographer in the Projecto Quorum. He was distinguished with the Almada Artes - Young Talent award, in the “Jovens Talentos 2019” contest, promoted by Almada’s Municipality.
