O5 - On-line Observatory
António Moreira - Amateur Theater Coordinator group “Flor do Linho”
Interviews, Cultural festivals
My name is António Moreira, I am coordinator of the Amador theater group “Flor do flax” as part of the Folkloric and Cultural Group As Lavradeiras do Vale do Sousa. The group was born based on the main theme of the folk group which is flax and the representativeness that is flax.
The main activities are an annual participation in the carnival where we create a theme and we take that theme in a slightly ridiculous way where women dress men and men women that is characteristic of this region. These people used to go to their grandparents' chests and put on their clothes, change genders and make the carnival a lot of fun. We also perform plays with small comedy pictures where we are exchanging with other groups, we are acting in places of the municipality.
The main goal of the group is to reach an age group between 14 and 18 years old where young people lose a little motivation for folklore, escape a little of folklore and through this extra activity (the theater) explore some of their valences and discover theatrical potentials. . We have some examples of young people who leave the folk groups and maintain the theater group and sooner or later come back to the folk group.
The difficulties we are having are more on the agenda since the main group (the folklore group) has a very busy schedule and the theater rehearsals and performances get a little more complicated. On the monetary level it is also difficult since it has no financial support, but we always get some help (or someone offers fabric for a costume or materials, for example). Every year we participate in the carnival and at least we have a new play. We always try to take advantage of each other's skills by exploring the potentials of singing for example, others who can dance better and the pieces we organize are designed to better harness the potentials. We create small magazine sketches, others of comedy, taking advantage of the potentials of people from 5 years old to 80. People know some theater themes and we always adapt. The public adheres a lot and in our headquarters we always have maximum capacity and in other places also because we mix the representations (dance, singing, etc.). We always create new songs, new dances, young people and teenagers do stage choreography and build our own scenarios always appealing to each other's creativity. In the future we want to further explore each other's potentials, we want to attract more young people to this project, increase the number of performances and it is certainly a project to continue.
Country
Portugal
