The project

This collaboration between Odin Teatret (Holstebro, Denmark), Imaginarius and the social department of the municipality of Santa Maria da Feira was commenced in January 2009.

The project's scope is, through discovering and working with different elements of the local communities, to create a street performance for Imaginarius 2009, in which the performers represent a wide panoply of groups across generations, communities, and practices.

For 4 months, we have been navigating through a web of local groups, cultures, and communities, visiting social centers, choirs, musicians, catechism schools, gardeners, canoe clubs, river boatsmen, football clubs, as well as working regurlarly with the festival's resident groups of Brides and the “60 +” - a group of senior citizens - and conducting open rehearsals in the communities of Porto Carvoeiro and Paços de Brandão.

The project now encompasses more than 200 persons belonging to diverse groups : The challenge is to create a situation in which these groups interact: brides and folk dancers, a brass band, a rapper and a choir, ballet and tae-kwon-do, exploring how theatre can function as a territory, belonging to no-one or all, where new meetings can happen, enriching both the participants and audience.


The point of departure of the performance is Selma Lagerlöfs novel “The Emperor of Portugal” (1914), which tells the story of a father's love of his daughter and his madness when he loses her, of emigration and return, of traditions and a new pitiless urban reality.
This narrative has gradually been fused with the suggestions, materials and ideas of the participants, with traditional songs and elements of the daily life of the group members, and with the characteristics of the performance space.
The novel's main symbol is the beating heart: – the heart that beats when we love, when we dance, when we sing – when there is flux, movement. And perhaps community theatre can sometimes achieve this: to keep alive the heart of the community, by creating movement and exchange across boundaries.