Rivoli is made up of 90 years of the city and a window that opens Porto to the world

Teatro Rivoli will celebrate nine decades of culture for six days, with nine projects, around 90 artists and nine art forms. From the 18th to the 23rd of January, the party belongs to the city, and it is built on it. With artists – from Porto and those who always come back to it – with a loyal and heterogeneous audience, but also with the neighbours. Rivoli’s 90 years will be celebrated also in Coliseu do Porto Ageas, Palácio do Bolhão, Maus Hábitos, cinema Passos Manuel and even at the Council Chambers.

Starting on 20 January 1932 “Rivoli’s long life is inseparable from the history of Porto, and the history of our city was and has been intrinsically shaped by the life of this theatre.” Rui Moreira’s words show the importance of the event. The Mayor of Porto thus introduced the presentation of the special anniversary programme of Teatro Municipal, on Wednesday morning.

For the Mayor, this “privileged window from Porto to the world, and from the world to Porto” is what it is today because of all the names that “made it so that over the years we were able to look at the world and think about it, sitting in the middle of the audience in Rivoli, and also made the World look at Porto and get to know the city also through this theatre: its character, its identity and, particularly, its resilience:”

The artistic director of Teatro Municipal do Porto, Tiago Guedes, shared that “it seemed obvious to us to celebrate this anniversary only with artists and projects from the city”. Recalling how “the past two years were very complicated”, the director stresses that “we want to show that Porto has become a cultural capital and that, much of what is done here is shown in the country and internationally”.

“This evidence is an ode to the artists of Porto and a big thanks for everyone’s resilience and inventive capacity for work”, concluded Tiago Guedes.

So, Let’s get to the party.

The first guest is the Porto company with two decades of work, Palmilha Dentada, that brings as a gift the latest theatrical performance of the show it has been presenting in Rivoli, “12 efeitos de luz”.

Guilherme de Sousa & Pedro Azevedo, are also working from Porto and, on this anniversary, they will take FINISSAGE, a work that takes the world of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea as its starting point, to Teatro do Campo Alegre,

In the same venue, the theatre continues with the sisters Inês Campos & Teia Campos who will make a debut of Castor & Pollux – considerate lilia, an admittedly biographical project in which they revisit their father’s film archive, in a show for the whole family.

From theatre to dance, Helder Seabra presents at the Grande Auditório do Rivoli his new creation for Instável – Centro Coreográfico: Lowlands, travelling to an area where the earth is below sea level and to the Freudian theory that compares the mind to an iceberg.

At the age of 90, Rivoli still celebrates contemporary circus with the cherished Erva Daninha, now at Palácio do Bolhão. In Dual SIM, the Porto company presents two jugglers who take on the challenge of constant and mandatory sharing of all resources, in a study about the distribution of objects between two bodies.

In the Council Chambers, a double edition of the Cadernos do Rivoli will be launched, with stories of the many shows and artists who have made nine decades since the debut of the play “Peraltas e Sécias”, by the company Rey Colaço/ Robles Monteiro. Cadernos feature essays by Alberto Manguel, Rita Ferro, Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, Joana d’Eça Leal, Miguel Honrado, Raquel Ribeiro, Samuel Silva and Paula Gomes Magalhães.

Still in the world of literature, there are the traditional Quintas de Leitura,a tribute to nine poets all indissolubly linked to Porto: Sophia de Mello Breyner, Eugénio de Andrade, Manuel António Pina, Alberto Pimenta, Ana Luísa Amaral, Daniel Maia-Pinto Rodrigues, Ana Paula Inácio, Daniel Jonas and Luís Ferreira.

A collection of videos-portraits of choreographers, presented as oracles, in dialogue with a suspended sculpture of a bicephalic whale – POROMECHANICS – can be seen at Maus Hábitos, while across the street, Passos Manuel cinema presents PAR(S), three audio-visual works, by three pairs of artists: Cláudia Varejão & Joana Castro, Pedro Neves Marques & Teresa Coutinho, and Sofia Arriscado & Costanza Givone.

HHY & The Kampala Unit descend to Rivoli’s sub-stage, an exploration of a mutant territory, where dub, techno, visceral percussion and the martial wind blend in a space where trance is the conductor of synthetic landscapes that catalyse the club’s vibrant body.

Still in a pandemic, there continues to be celebration in digital

From Rivoli to television, RTP 2 once again joins the theatre’s anniversary and broadcasts, on 22 January, “Mal – Embriaguez Divina”, by choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas, an emblematic show recorded at Teatro Rivoli last September.

For those who can’t physically go to Rivoli, the gift arrives online with the transmission of the shows “Castor & Pollux - considerate lilia”, and “Lowlands”.

Admission to all the activities is free upon collection of tickets (a maximum of two tickets per person, per show) at the Rivoli box office or at BOL, after 10 am, on the days of the shows.

The entire Special anniversary programme can be followed on the Teatro Municipal do Porto webpage as the candles are blown out.