The winner of the 2019 Mais Imaginarius, the international competition that challenges emerging artists to present creations for public space during Imaginarius – International Street Theatre Festival has been announced. France’s Collectif Kaboum convinced the jury with their circus show Système D and, in addition to receiving a €5,000 grant, they will be invited to create a new project to be premiered at the next edition of the Imaginarius festival.
The joy, mastery and technique of the five young people who performed in the circus show Système D attracted the attention of the public during the three days of Imaginarius – 23, 24 and 25 May – but also of the jury, who gave them the highest score among the 20 projects from several countries – Australia, Belgium, Slovakia, Spain, France, Italy, England and Portugal – that competed in this edition.
Système D is a circus show that can be enjoyed by people of all ages, mixing mastery, technique and love of life. Based on the hand-to-hand technique, the cheerful characters revisit moments from the everyday lives of all of us. A cart made of leftovers, pulled by a patched motorcycle. Five people share a tiny space… The street becomes a playground and the monotony of daily routine disappears to give way to a scene of community life.
In this edition, the jury of Mais Imaginarius was made up of: Fátima Lambert, professor of Instituto Politécnico do Porto, at ESE – UTC – Cultural and Social Studies, Isabel Bezelga, professor of the Department of Arts of the University of Évora, Valdemar Cruz, cultural journalist and coordinator at the Expresso newspaper José Prata, architect and teacher responsible for SA/ ESMAE-IPP and associate professor of the artistic and scientific area of production and music technologies of ESMAE/IPP, and Stine Polke-Pedersen, cultural consultant and partner in PASSAGE – Street Theatre International Festival in Helsingor, Denmark.
Mais Imaginarius is a section of the Imaginarius festival that aims to give space to emerging artists willing to show their work through a competition of artistic creations. This section challenges them to present proposals that approach public space in its diverse perceptions, testing formats and models, towards the construction of new artistic identities.
For the 2019 competition, 20 projects were selected to be part of the festival’s programme. The Municipality of Santa Maria da Feira awarded grants to support travel, meals and accommodation, in an overall investment of around 12,000 euros. It is also worth mentioning that Mais Imaginarius, currently an important platform in support of contemporary artistic creation for public space, has attracted more than 180 proposals from 40 different nationalities in seven artistic disciplines, which proves how willing artists from all over the world are to participate with their creations in Portugal’s largest street arts festival.