Actor and performer Rui Paixão is back at Imaginarius – Santa Maria da Feira International Street Theatre Festival, the first stage that opened doors for the artist from Feira to the world of performing arts, catapulting him to the renowned global company Cirque du Soleil.
Many will remember the character of Cão à Chuva, the clown with a white face, shaved head and tufts of green hair, who surprised the audience at Imaginarius in 2015 and ended up being considered that edition’s revelation, earning him a passport to other similar international festivals.
Rui Paixão now returns to Imaginarius, not as a performer, but as creator and director of the performance “Final Girl”, performed solo by performer and dancer Rina Marques, who saw her application for the Call for Support for Local Creation approved.
With a very unique language, “Final Girl” combines clowning, theatre and dance, highlighting Rui Paixão’s “ultra-expressionist” side, in a solo for the feminine, “fresh, intense, rhythmic”, with an implicit message for each person to discover, as the performer explains.
In this creation, Rina Marques leaves her comfort zone to enter the universe of Rui Paixão, which she had long wanted to experience on her own body, through intense, physically demanding movements, striking facial expressions, which she was not used to, and even singing.
The creative process ends in May, with the third artistic residency taking place in Santa Maria da Feira a few days before the festival, which “invades” streets and squares between the 22nd and 25th, in the historic centre and surrounding area.
Always traveling around the country and the world, it is with “love” that Rui Paixão continues to speak of Santa Maria da Feira, the land where he was born and raised, where he currently lives and where he continues to create, as has happened in recent days, at the Imaginarius Creation Centre.
“In Santa Maria da Feira there is space for us to be who we truly want to be”, stresses the creator, who continues to be attracted to “a land that sees Culture as an essential place”.
Until his participation in the opening of the oldest festival in France, the iconic Festival d’Avignon, to be held in July, Rui Paixão will continue his national tour with the theatre and circus show “Furo Lento” and creating, always with Santa Maria da Feira on his radar as a destination back home.
