DANIEL FARIA
Almost no one mentions faith in the art or in the contemporary scene. This is a work about the transcendence, about a man that chooses an extreme way of life and dialogues with God.
Daniel Faria was a Portuguese poet and a monk. He collected stones, he loved the churches’ light, theater, literature, music, cinema; he loved his friends almost to the obsession. In his poetry God is a physical experience. He died at the age of 28 due to a fall in the Benedictine monastery of Singeverga.
The main matter of life and Faria’s work is to share. To share words, friendship, poetry and faith. But also to share theater, where he found a unique language. Daniel chose a dead life, but his entire work is a response to the word of God, affirmed a companion of Singeverga monastery. You can not imagine how he shone when he acted, when he went on stage he was transformed, another said. There was a need for representation. And precisely from the representation, faith is understood. If faith is somewhere, it is in the rite and not in the doctrine. Faith is a way of doing and acting, a presence, an attitude. Thus, it appears in this show, where bodies become a file and memory of those gestures of faith, of these different ways of dancing, of these different ways of asking: will you accept to be touched, are you available? Daniel Faria, the dead life has been lit.
Letter to Daniel Faria…
Do you hear me?
They ask us how we met
Those that do not know what is to meet someone in the street, in the country, in trip
In the church, they ask to us
They wish to hear a good story, a beautiful story
That after they could tell as it was theirs
But shall we give them? Is it not a very big sacrifice?
They ask us who was the first to approach, who chose
They ask us who was the first to talk, to show his fragility
The first to ask, do you want to be my friend?
(…)
I take care of my ill and broken body
Others would have thrown it to the rubbish
Or they would had put it in other people hands to avoid to concentrate
To know themselves
But here I am
I am here in my room, all my decissions are made
I get closer to the wall and I say
Let’s invent the time we want
Let’s play us alone
They say I chose freely, they say whatever
I hit the wall in your presence
I become mad against that wall that does nothing to know me
I describe a choreography, I write with my body
Can you understand how I move when I have no words?
(…)
Paradise and hell exist, I saw them
I inhabited in them
I had friends in all of them
I passed from one to the other all the time
And that is why my truth was always visible
The truth of seeing the ecstasy and death every day
That is why I was always clear
And that is my only pride
All was part of me
I was at all the places
They never asked me where I felt better
In hell or in paradise
And I never felt the need neither say nor choose
(…)
My body is fragile
My body is filthy for all the things that it took
I come back from a long day of childhood
I come back from a long illness and you are not here
I come back from the night soaked in sweat, in impossible liquids
I come back ashamed but proud too
This is my other cheek
It is a way of talking
Talk to me, so one day I will be able to talk to you
Wash me, so one day I will be able to wash you
(…)
TOUR 2017
19-22 JAN
LISBOA – Teatro Nacional Dona Maria II
26-28 JAN
Salón Teatro
9,10 JUL
PORTO – FITEI-Teatro Rivoli
CREDITS
Creation and text
Pablo Fidalgo
Performers
Pablo Fidalgo y Tiago Gandra
Light design
Nuno Figueira y Pablo Fidalgo
Artistic collaboration
Vítor Roriz
Artistic advice
Gabino Rodríguez, Idoia Zabaleta
Creation support and executive production
Amalia Area
Translation
Inês Dias
Production
Sofia Matos/Materiais Diversos
Co-production
Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (Lisboa), Centro Dramático Galego (Galiza) e Teatro Municipal de Porto (Porto)
Con el apoyo de: Teatro Municipal Campo Alegre (Porto), Azala (Álava), Câmara Municipal de Lisboa e Polo Cultural Gaivotas, Largo Residências (Lisboa)
Con el apoyo de: Teatro Municipal Campo Alegre (Porto), Azala (Álava), Câmara Municipal de Lisboa e Polo Cultural Gaivotas, Largo Residências (Lisboa)
Photography
Tiago Gandra