PARTY AT SERRALVES!

The largest contemporary arts festival in Portugal, lasting for 40 consecutive hours and including activities for all ages, all families and the whole family.

40 hours Nonstop!
Music, Dance, Theater, Exhibitions and much more
FREE ENTRANCE!

The eight edition of Serralves em Festa will take place on May 28 and 29 for 40 consecutive hours. This is the largest contemporary arts festival in Portugal and one of biggest in Europe, including hundreds of events unfolding at the various spaces in Serralves as well as venues in downtown Porto and the Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport.  Serralves em Festa has already become a must for thousands upon thousands of people.

From 8 a.m. Saturday, May 28, to midnight on Sunday, May 29, Serralves will host more than 240 events, with activities for all ages. These events cover the areas of Performance, Music (Improvised, Pop Rock, Electronic, Experimental, Jazz, DJs), Contemporary Dance, Acrobatics, Contemporary Circus, Sound Objects Circus, Theatre (Street Theatre, Theatre for Children, Puppet Theatre) Cinema, Video, Installation, Photography, Guided visits, Exhibitions, Workshops and a range of activities for Children and families.

HIGHLIGHTS:

AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN HEAR
Dance
By Martine Pisani, performed by Nilo Gallego, Theo Kooijman and Ludovic Rivière

Conceived by French choreographer Martine Pisani for three interpreters, As Far as the Eye Can Hear seeks to construct an image of time. A form in perpetual becoming, building itself as it falls apart. Urban, rural, sheltered, exposed to the wind, the ambiance is taken into account, although the proposal consists of creating our own landscape, a landscape within the landscape, a climate within the climate. How to frame this image within the within the larger image offered by the landscape? What will the audience glean from this unfolding? In As Far as the Eye Can Hear dance emerges from within the performing of daily gestures: the dancers execute slow motion leaps, decompose the movement of running, hold hands without letting go of the arms, run around and walk with no apparent reason. The burlesque and enigmatic effect is created by their determination.

PFFFFFFF!
Contemporary Circus
Cie Akoreacro

The sound of fireworks, of a bottle of champagne being opened, of an airplane crossing the sky, PFFFFFFF! Is a light murmur, the perfect breath of this Show of circus, acrobatics and music. PFFFFFFF! Is inspired in a tale of seven trapeze artists who court a woman. Who will she choose? Akoreacro Company chose two languages to evoke the encounter and reconciliation between these people: acrobatics and music. Acrobatics, trapeze and other balancing acts are breathtaking and the music transports us into a alchemy of sounds that include improvisations, tango, hip-hop, jazz… In PFFFFFFF!, which premiered in France earlier this year, we come across the joy of living, dancing and abandoning the body to a maelstrom of surprising spins that promises to be reinvigorating and unique.

CHICKS ON SPEED (Party at the Meadow)
Pop/Electronic

Chicks on Speed is an interdisciplinary artistic and creative project known for the blazing energy of their members. Alex Murray-Leslie (Australia) and Melissa Logan (USA) founded the group in 1997. Chicks on Speed sing, dance, draw, paint, make exhibitions, give conferences, publish, design avant-garde apparel, create sculptures, installation, etc. Although they could be associated to electropop, electro-clash, punk-inspired DIY ethic (“do it yourself ethic”), with Dadaist and feminist elements, it is hard to pigeomhle hem into any of these categories. They are more than a band. They are artists and researchers oozing with humour and good vibes. At Serralves em Festa, they will be performing with a guest percussionist in a show with substantial doses of energy and irreverence.

PERICO SAMBEAT FLAMENCO BIG BAND
Jazz

The Flamenco Big Band is one of the last great projects led by saxophonist Perico Sambeat, the most Portuguese of all Sevillians. Player emeritus of multiple instruments (sax alto, sax soprano, clarinet, flute), his musical grandeur remains as one of the unjustified secrets of European jazz. Long ago, Perico was discovered and almost immediately adopted by the Portuguese jazz community. A regular at the Hot Clube jazz nights, he is the usual accomplice of pianist Bernardo Sassetti and of the Matosinhos Jazz Orchestra. With an extensive discography, Sambeat has now added his first great orchestra, the Flamenco Big Band, to his curriculum in another link in the historical chain of cyclic enamouring between jazz and flamenco.

GANG GANG DANCE (Closing Party)
Experimental Pop

Gang Gang Dance become internationally renowned since the release of their album God's Money in 2005, which resulted from the work they had been developing in the Brooklyn experimental music scene alongside bands such the Animal Collective, Black Dice and TV on The Radio. The band has released six albums and an undisputable place in the artistic and musical panorama of New York. Aside from Lizzi Bougatsos’ vocals, they use a wide range of electronic and traditional instruments, especially percussion, and merge their work with the visual arts by producing and mixing video, projections, music and painting. They experiment with electronic instruments that come their way instead of seeking for cutting edge technology, as they are unconcerned with technological perfection; their real interest is for experimentation and the ensuing musical results. Music is constructed instinctively, emotionally and energetically. Gang Gang Dance are not an easily classifiable band and do not fit any musical trend or clearly delimited genre. They develop their sound across a variety of universes and reaching different audiences. The wide recognition of the quality of their work has led to a leap from a small label to the great 4AD, who have launched their newest album “Eye Contact”, to be released in May 2011. Their live shows are known for the contagious, colourful energy that pours from the stage to the audience.

MAKE LOVE NOT WAR
João Paulo Seara Cardoso
Puppet Theatre
Partners: FITEI, Teatro de Marionetas do Porto / Centro de Criação de Teatro e Artes de Rua

With the reprise of this work João Paulo Seara Cardoso remains with us.

Make Love Not War is a show based on Aristophanes Lysistrata, with dramaturgy by João Paulo Seara Cardoso. Lysistrata is a play against war, an apology of peace and goo will among men. It attacks the old who govern the nation and spend in weaponry the money necessary for other purposes. Guided by Lysistrata the women rebel and succeed in bringing the war between the Athenian and the Spartan to an end and their husbands and children home. They resort to the weapon of sex, refusing to be taken by any man until the war is over and piece achieved. Staged in 411 AD, the text remains bold and up to date in many aspects.



In 2010, PARTY AT SERRALVES received more than 102,000 visitors during its 40 hours.

WE HOPE TO SEE YOU HERE!