Based on a body at various tempos and on kuduro movements, Gio Lourenço (Angola, 1987) builds a biographical itinerary in which the body becomes an allegory of memory. Kuduro appears in the 1990s, in Luanda, in the context of a civil war. The specific codes of this style of music/dance reached Portugal through the bodies and tapes of those moving between the two countries. In his teen years, in the late 1990s, when he was already living in Portugal, Gio Lourenço got in touch with this universe and became a kuduro dancer, discovering a broken body—his own—where memory reinvents itself in the gesture.
Boca Fala Tropa puts forward an artistic territory displaced from a concrete geography—the transit between Angola and Portugal—, based on the steps and codes of kuduro, but crossing elements of personal memory and its inevitable fictions with elements of collective memory.
Boca Fala Tropa
Gio Lourenço
He was born in 1987, in Luanda, Angola, and grew up in Portugal. He received a scholarship from the National Centre for Culture to attend the dance and performance training at c.e.m, and he completed the theatre and animation course at the Cascais Cooperative for Education, Rehabilitation and Empowerment for Inclusion (CERCICA).
He is a resident actor at Teatro GRIOT, having performed in plays staged by Zia Soares, Rogério de Carvalho, Nuno M Cardoso and Guilherme Mendonça, among others.
His performance Preta was presented at the Netherlands pavilion during the 17th Venice Biennial, in the scope of which he also developed the project Memória Botânica in partnership with Sofia Berberan.
He participated in the project Charging Change, by visual artist Michelle Eistrup (Documenta 2022), in the films O Lugar que Ocupas, by Pedro Filipe Marques, Tempestades: Ensaio de um Ensaio, by Uli Decker, A Ilha dos Cães, by Jorge António, Arriaga, by Welket Bungué, Filmes e Telemóvel, by Adriano Luz, and Verdade Inconveniente, by Pedro Sebastião and Paulo Cuco. As far as television goes, he featured in Equador, Inspector Max, Ele é Ela and Café Kwanza. He danced in several videoclips.
He is a resident actor at Teatro GRIOT, having performed in plays staged by Zia Soares, Rogério de Carvalho, Nuno M Cardoso and Guilherme Mendonça, among others.
His performance Preta was presented at the Netherlands pavilion during the 17th Venice Biennial, in the scope of which he also developed the project Memória Botânica in partnership with Sofia Berberan.
He participated in the project Charging Change, by visual artist Michelle Eistrup (Documenta 2022), in the films O Lugar que Ocupas, by Pedro Filipe Marques, Tempestades: Ensaio de um Ensaio, by Uli Decker, A Ilha dos Cães, by Jorge António, Arriaga, by Welket Bungué, Filmes e Telemóvel, by Adriano Luz, and Verdade Inconveniente, by Pedro Sebastião and Paulo Cuco. As far as television goes, he featured in Equador, Inspector Max, Ele é Ela and Café Kwanza. He danced in several videoclips.
© Sofia Berberan
Artistic Director Gio Lourenço
Text Gio Lourenço and Cátia Terrinca
Dramaturgy Cátia Terrinca
Creation Support Neusa Trovoada and Sofia Berberan
Performers Gio Lourenço, Xullaji and Vânia Doutel Vaz (in video)
Video Artist Michelle Eistrup
Sound Design Xullaji
Light Design and Operation Manuel Abrantes
Movement Support Vânia Doutel Vaz, Fogo de Deus
Body Support Sofia Neuparth
Scenography and Figures Neusa Trovoada
Video Magda Buczek
Wardrobe Ulla Jensen
Photography Sofia Berberan
Executive Production (circulation) Nuno Eusébio and Maria Inês Marques
Production and Management Support (circulation) c.e.m. - moving centre
> This show is followed by a talk.