Political Representation

"The world state is a stage"

This is a performance on Political Representation where, in each presentation, a representative of the audience is elected.

There is a long loving story between theatre and politics.
Theatre is a game of representation.
Elections are a game for choosing representatives.
In this performance, theatre actors become representatives, through a social game created as a device to des-illude representation. Questioning the process of becoming representative is to question the process itself and the way we are represented/ represent.
On other hand , it raises questions on identity, community, and target groups (as with marketing, also used in politics).


Maputo experience
I developed a workshop on Political Representation with actors from theatre company Luarte.

The process was based on a questionnaire on Political Representation and Identity, that I prepared. The questionnaire generated content on biography, identity aspects, forms of representation. We also explored the six degrees of separation to see how would each actor send a message to the President of Mozambique.
The performance was based on the structure of the questionnaire:
1- my identity: the actor presents him/herself;
2- my representative: in how many steps would each actor send a message to the president of Mozambique?
3- election of a representative among the audience: voluntaries are asked to come on stage and dialogue with the actors, who will after try to portray each one's volunteer as candidate to be the audience's representative.


























This performance was further developed in Act 2 (here)




























Supported by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian - PGAD