The multidisciplinary performance ConCorda, by Portugal’s Catarina Gameiro and Mariana Frazão, won the Mais Imaginarius competition, a section of Imaginarius – Santa Maria da Feira International Street Theatre Festival that opens up space to emerging artists from all over the world, through a competition for artistic creations for public space.
Selected by an international jury among 19 projects from nine countries in competition, the performance of this pair of Portuguese performers was awarded the opportunity to carry out an artistic creation in residence in Santa Maria da Feira, guaranteed to premiere in the main programme of Imaginarius in 2025 , in addition to a monetary award of 5 thousand euros intended to support the new project.
The basis for this choice was the score given by Aleksandar Caric, artistic director of Uličnih Svirača, an international street music festival in Novi Sad, Serbia; Mara Pávula, director of Latvia’s national circus, Rigas Cirks; Maria Capell, programming officer at the international festival FiraTàrrega, Spain; Jean-Marc Broqua, director of international relations at La Grainerie – Fabrique des Arts du Cirque et de L’Itenérance, France; and João Paulo Santos, Portuguese circus artist, Chinese pole specialist and founder of the artistic company O Último Momento.
Presented during the Imaginarius’24 festival, at Descobrimentos Street and the Municipal Archive, the ConCorda performance is a cross between dance, physical theatre and object manipulation.
Mariana Frazão is the creator and one of the performers of this performance, along with Catarina Gameiro, who began her artistic journey at Chapitô, exploring the fusion of the body and art.
Born in Lisbon, Catarina Gameiro studied clown, physical theatre, storytelling, scenography and lighting, performing on international stages. In 2018, she founded the company Circo Teatro Bandada in Puerto Rico and, in 2022, she led Chapitô’s Your Animation Team at Pestana Porto Santo, also joining casts from Companhia PIA and Circo Matemático.
Mariana Frazão began her artistic career in the Circus Interpretation and Animation Course. She specialized in manipulating objects and juggling, focusing on sharing and fusing different languages. She participates in various artistic, cultural and social projects and has already attended the Community Dance Course. Currently, she is part of the cast of “Coreto (Con) vida” by Cláudia Nóvoa, as well as Circo Matemático and the project Pulsar – Companhia do Corpo.
It should be noted that, every year, the Mais Imaginarius section brings together applications from artists and collectives from all over the world, who present hundreds of projects from different artistic disciplines and intersections with proven quality, which shows their great desire to occupy the public space of Santa Maria da Feira during the Imaginarius festival.
In the next editions of Mais Imaginarius, innovative approaches, the crossing of disciplines, the integration of technologies and the participation of communities will be valued.
The 24th edition of the festival will take place between 22 and 25 May, 2025, centred on the theme “Progress”.
