Weaving Windows is a participatory circus show invested in community process.
We tie together places through stories that need to be heard, we tie communities that need to connect, we tie people to buildings that need to be inhabited, we tie ourselves to the audience.
The project was born in the frame of the European project BETA CIRCUS – Participatory Experience. The first time the artists visited LEME Festival, they were struck by the sight of residents of the apartments neighboring the Casa da Cultura looking down from their balconies onto the festival site. In their distant participation they were both part of and apart from the audience. The artists felt a strong curiosity to speak with these residents and to create a space for their stories to resonate in the square outside of the Casa da Cultura.
Our first experience Weaving Windows was in Ílhavo (Portugal), hosted by 23 Milhas. When we arrived to the square, we understood that a beloved market was housed there for many years. It was demolished and later replaced by the Casa da Cultura. The relationship between the inhabitants surrounding the square and the Casa da Cultura is challenged. We realized the necessity for the stories of these inhabitants to be sewn concretely to the building in the square. Together with the audience, we wove colorful tubes through the square to connect the voices of the residents to the cultural center.
MELODY NOLAN
Is a circus maker hailing from California. As a keen explorer of her physicality and surroundings, Melody draws inspiration from a physical approach to artistic research, balancing technique with creativity. Her work melds handstands with acrobatic movement as she seeks to nourish a rich dialogue between body, space, and expression.
Melody is motivated by the potential circus holds for offering different perspectives in novel contexts and settings, and is therefore especially interested in site-based and interdisciplinary work.
OMER VAN SOLDT
Is an artist, writer and theatermaker born and raised in the Netherlands. Utilizing writing both as a tool of uncovering as well as self-expression is a base in most of his practices, in that the scenarios he writes, the artworks he composes, and the experiences he mimics can all be redirected to touching pen to paper.
These mediums find themselves often intertwined to grant the audience a truly immersive experience. Omer is a student at the Artscience Interfaculty at both the Royal Academy of Art and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
LALI ÁLVAREZ (Mentor)
Is author, stage director, creator of participatory art projects, poet and teacher. Her work focuses on documentary and artistic creation inspired by reality, work in non-conventional spaces and research of spectator relationship and participatory creation, with the overriding theme of sustainable culture research.
She also trained in audiovisual production, writing, politics and artistic creation in public space. Her pieces have premiered in theaters such as the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona, National Theater of Catalunya and Antic Teatre or at festivals such as Festival Grec, Festival Temporada Alta and FiraTàrrega, amongst others.
WETUMTUM
WETUMTUM is a non-profit cultural association that stimulates and develops artistic movements for children and families.
WETUMTUM starts from the premise that every human being is capable of creating, participating and developing through contact with music and performance. We also believe that this ability begins at a young age, which is why we develop our artistic work in such a way that the result goes beyond contemplation. We seek, through playful moments, to achieve participatory, interactive and personal development moments.