Wiener Festwochen 2019: Angélica Liddell / The Scarlet Letter

For close to 30 years director Mónica Calle has been running the successful Lisbon-based Casa Conveniente, which has built a reputation for itself as a dynamic theatre laboratory. Internationally her work is still only known to insiders. Together with people in a phase of upheaval and on the margins of society, Calle explores the alternative to a regulated, capitalist society: the resistive beauty and strength of imperfection.
Ensaio para uma Cartografia (Attempt for a Cartography) shows twelve women’s bodies with very different histories in a cycle of error, failure and renewed attempt. They stand in the semi-darkness of the stage and practise compositions from the œuvre of Ravel, Stravinsky or Beethoven. None of these women are classically trained dancers or musicians, which is exactly where they get their freedom and emancipatory power from. For the first time outside Portugal: a compelling plea for taking risks together.