The animateatro is a group that seeks to provide a wide cultural offer for the various stages of childhood and also for adults. Above all takes theater to schools, from nursery to the kinder garden and the first degree in the Municipality of Seixal. It has its headquarters in Amora, the auditorium cinema of St. Vincent, where every Sunday afternoon the word is day dreaming.
How does appear the animateatro?
Patricia Cairrão: We formed the group in 2001 and then since 2002 we have become a professional structure initially facing infant productions, notably with the theater project goes to school with children who do not normally have the ability to enjoy these cultural activities. We started with childhood, but little by little we have created plays for adults, training and in 2005 started to be programmers with the inauguration of anima theater space, Amora, which is our headquarters, a room with 40 places that received various companies and our own productions for the general public. In 2008 we signed an agreement with the Municipality of Seixal and started managing a city hall space, which is the auditorium Cinema São Vicente. From then on we started to create a children's programming on Sunday afternoons.
Going back a bit ago, you said the group in its infancy performed shows for the neediest children in social terms, but how does this process work? You proposed schools and associations to carry out one or more shows, or were these institutions that came to the group?
PC: Since the beginning of the process started as we bringing theater to schools and other educational institutions that welcomed children. We do shows that have a traveling nature daily to the various valences of children either, with the theater for babies we have since 2009, as the theater garden-schools and primary schools.
How does one create shows for babies, how assemble parts or adapt texts to draw the attention of children so young?
PC: For babies we do not adapt texts, a language similar to the Portuguese we do not consider that it is appropriate for these ages, some even do not even understand, because they are not at that stage. Actually their findings are the sensory world. In early childhood are the discoveries by the senses. In 2009 we found that there was a gap in this valence and decided to create a cycle of exploration and stimulation of the senses of the body so that it can communicate with children in this age group. Our shows are for babies entered this cycle, so that in a first phase, in which the main focus was the sense of hearing and was called "in search of the little noise," as we have now where the "vêtoca" which brings us to the senses of touch and vision, which is indeed what we presented the week of "I love you theater."
How does it work then the creative process? What has to account for this type of entertainment?
PC: First appears the initial idea that is created by the team of staging, which is this case is Lina Ramos and Ricardo Santos, they define the line of sight. How we chose the senses of sight and touch they creates a route that had various sensory stimuli that focuses above all on the discovery and transformation of the characters themselves. In rehearsals, we have a collective process where we find, we too, attribute of language that is proper of this laboratory that is created during this space. In the course of sensory stimuli we later corresponded with emotions, with sounds that help us later in this language.
Color is important?
PC: Yes, it is fundamental. We know that early childhood primary colors, yellow, red, blue are calling more attention to the baby and then if so, in terms of vision are the bright colors they perceive what is one new thing.
Just earlier you said that the theater for babies appears because you noticed that there was a gap. You noted that failure when parents brought to the theater their older children, or resulted from your own experience?
PC: It's a mixture of both. On the one hand, since 2002 we have worked with kinder gardens and the second cycle and was in contact with them, because some of these spaces had nurseries, we noticed that there was little culture to offer to babies, as it is difficult to move them because the logistics is brutal, there was nothing. Educators, on the other hand, were alerting us to the fact that there was no theater for the little ones and given these spaces and thanks to our experience, as you said, we have seen that in terms of other companies, our colleagues, no one had this valence and we felt we had to and started our research for this age group.
Tell me about the show "vêtoca."
PC: It was a show premiered in May, which is based on the stimulation of the senses of sight and touch. There is a journey for two characters who do not know each other, first by sight and by touch later and they soon discover along the show, it will be the turning point they realized that are very similar, they have similar bodies and that they can move similarly. Throughout the show we showed various stimuli in terms of sound, touch and all the sensations that involve seeing and touching. It is a very brief summary.
The animateatro has multiple valences, intend to create another?
PC: Currently animatheater has several productions for various age groups in terms of our own productions, the theater for babies, theater for children, and productions for adults once a year. We recently had "Anne Frank" that left the scene now, we are starting to work on a new project that will debut in September for children. We have another aspect which is the artistic and social intervention, which has to do with other types of audiences are people who do not want to be actors, these are training for adults, the elderly and economically disadvantaged youth. It is a project that we are now developing with the community.
You notice these past eight years that have on your shows beyond the younger audience, the parents? That is several generations of the same family
PC: Yes, above all we have children's programming where there is a public already frequent, although much of the entertainment comes on Sunday afternoons; we found that parents appear in productions staged for adults on Saturday night. Even in terms of training we had already 500 students and we see the culture being creates in Seixal, because when we debuted we were the only professional theater company and continued to be the only one here.
http://www.animateatro.org/
