Mixed media, or poetic communication exercise, 1969. Includes slide (black & white and color) and film (Super 8, black & white and color, silent) projections, involvements, actions, poem reading, musical improvisation, playback of music and recorded texts. Variable duration.
Presented at Clube de Teatro 1º Acto, Algés, December 1969.
We made posters that must be completed by the user, sculptural objects that will be given variable shape by the visitor of the exhibitions, and the theaters mix actor and spectator, inciting the latter to participate in the show. (...) We want a choral work, we want to laboratorially analyze, in depth and extension, the ways of enriching convivial gathering. We want to destroy individual – the exact one that the theater spectator encounters after applauding the actors of any regular show. Therefore our exercise doesn't end, or rather it ends not in applauses but in a supper through which – and in the life that follows – we intend to continue a gathering and an always diverse communication.
Ernesto de Sousa, "Um Exercício de Comunicação Poética", Vida Mundial, nr. 1588, November 14th, 1969.
The script for this mixed media follows the structure of Almada Negreiros' Invenção do Dia Claro. Part of this exercise was filmed to be included in Almada, Um Nome de Guerra.
Script and direction by Ernesto de Sousa. Music composition and direction by Jorge Peixinho featuring musicians António Silva, Helena Cláudio and Clotilde Rosa. Poems by Almada Negreiros, Mário Cesariny, Herberto Helder and Luiza Neto Jorge, read by António Borga, João Luís Gomes, Madalena Pestana and Pena Viçoso. Tecnical support and participation of Clube de Teatro 1º Acto (Francisco Madeira Luís, José Luís Madeira and José Torres) and members of the Oficina Experimental (Carlos Gentil-Homem, Filomena Fernandes, Isabel Alves, Manuel Torres, Maria Manuel Torres, Marilyn Reynolds, Peter Rubin and Teresa Pacheco Pereira). Films Happy People and Havia um Homem que Corria by Ernesto de Sousa and Carlos Gentil-Homem from 1968. Slides by Ernesto de Sousa and Carlos Gentil-Homem. Lighting by Fernando Calhau. Posters by Fernando Calhau and Carlos Gentil-Homem.