ORIGINS

ALBA, e em ela é que espelhou o ceu was born as the final exercise of the Curso de Iniciação Teatral 2018/2019 at CITAC (Círculo de Iniciação Teatral da Academia de Coimbra), after six months of intensive training under the direction of Matilde Javier Ciria.

The training process culminated in a collective creation presented at the Teatro Estudio de CITAC at the MITEU 2019 festival, at the Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente within MTU’19 – Mostra de Teatro Universitário, and at FATAL 2019 – Festival Anual de Teatro Académico de Lisboa.

The piece arises from a deep pedagogical work where 15 students explored their physical and psychological limits. The process began with the individual confession of personal fears and desired journeys, transforming into collective creation through physical exercises that gave rise to texts and dances.

CONCEPT

ALBA emerges from the encounter between Portuguese poetic tradition and contemporary butoh dance. The title evokes the verses of Fernando Pessoa: “Deus ao mar o perigo e o abismo deu, / Mas nele é que espelhou o céu”, transforming the Pessoan sea into a body that reflects the celestial immensity.

CITAC’s theatrical proposal, under the direction of Matilde Javier Ciria, explores the fragility of human fear through the journey toward the unknown. Alba becomes a metaphor for succumbing to the inevitable, facing that crossing we all live at some point in our lives and which, paradoxically, we still wish to experience.

ALBA represents the scenic materialization of a collective “viagem muito pessoal”, where each performer confronts their own fears while building a show about fear itself. The piece explores the paradox of creating art out of terror: “o espetáculo não era só sobre o medo, o espetáculo era medo, não é só ver, é preciso ser”.

The proposal seeks to work with the subconscious, maintaining the organicity of the creative process while offering a spectrum of possibilities that allow the audience to “criar a sua própria história”. Generating a territory where the performance is intimately bound to the senses.

DARKNESS

The piece germinates from one of the primary sources of fear: the unknown. The audience is led into a space of total darkness by faceless bodies, figures that emerge from the void like inhabited shadows.

They will not only remain in total darkness. They will be redistributed across the scenic territory so that they can embody their isolation, experience their solitude as living matter. No one has anyone beside them. The piece will happen around them, beneath their chairs, inside their breathing.

The audience, even knowing they inhabit a safe space, connects with primal fears, those childhood terrors where the world, while within arm’s reach, reveals itself too vast to be contained.

Where does the spectator’s body end and the body of the piece begin?

Those present feel a deep insecurity, one that does not come from outside but emerges from within, from that zone where fear is not represented but embodied.