when tiago guedes came to the new cine-teatro são pedro in Alcanena in May 2008, we had the opportunity to debate the structural role this theatre has on the cultural activity of the council, on the importance of intervening not only with a quality program but most importantly, in finding ways to raise awareness within the audience and bring them closer to the performing arts. We quickly realized the challenge and enthusiasm we share over the importance of developing a cooperation project. The idea for a festival surfaced in a spark. The Alcanena City Hall understood the consequences of this project on the establishment of its own cultural policies for the region and from the first hour assumed its partnership. The financing from the Ministry of Culture was then a worthy recognition of a highly qualified project conceived by Tiago Guedes—which in a near future may become an international reference. The profile of this festival is intimately attached to the aesthetical and artistic concerns of Tiago Guedes, structured around memories and spaces of his childhood and youth —where many promising artists of his generation will perform (Martim Pedroso, André Murraças, Tânia Carvalho, John Romão, among others). Materiais Diversos aims to conquer new audiences and establish an international festival within the region, which will sustain new local cultural dynamics. Along with great artists from the European scene like Eszter Salamon (Hungary), Jonathan Burrows (UK) and Raimund Hoghe (Germany), we will share artistic projects with local partners: choirs, philharmonic bands, theatre groups and folk dance groups… And because we’re dealing with contemporary art—which houses a deep creative freedom—we claim a wider participation from the audience. The integration of the audience in the artistic object and subsequent open public debate on the results of the performances make way for a more affective and effective complicity between audience and artists. This crossroad of languages and recurring dialogue is our proposal for a new, wider and essential audience. This is why Materiais Diversos is a festival of challenges. Deliberate challenges to confront and unsettle… Challenges set by artists that want to seduce and audiences that like to be seduced, propositions out of texts, gestures, images and sounds that want to inhabit and be inhabited. This is why in this festival—and in the crossing of all languages and aesthetical experiences, ways of looking at the world—the sensorial is more important than the code. Emotion is more important than logic. Questions more important than answers. We know that by joining this project (naturally unstable) with this (provisional) dimension, all risks are at hand. We also know that its time to establish an agenda of contemporary art through this festival, which in the coming years will give us input, feed our souls and make us a bit happier. vítor costa Alcanena's Cine Teatro São Pedro director
8 editorial