DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE THE COURAGE TO CHANGE

There are desires that grow within us almost without our realising it. There comes a moment when we feel the need to pause, to pay attention to what is invisible and unsettles us. An active pause, not intended to hold us back, but rather to enhance the quality of our inner listening. From this listening, an impulse is born – a real movement that needs to take shape. This movement opens out onto the world and expands. The inner and the outer intersect, and the invisible restlessness that once lived within us begins to stir our daily lives. It transforms us and transforms everything it comes into contact with. We are thus on a journey that leads us to the wonder of the revelation of what we do not know and which we will come to inhabit. New routines, new actions, new learnings, new paths, new friendships and new loves emerge. Everything is redefined through the interplay of identities, bodies, voices, gestures, sounds and colours.

Inspired by the delicate work of the illustrator Ana Ventura and borrowing the title of her book to name the show itself, Mudar is an invitation to discover the joy of ‘emigrating’ into one another, of being a fraternal body/country. A Yellow figure, in their Yellow country, immersed in their Yellow daily life, decides to leave. To cross over from what they know to what they do not yet know. To start afresh in another place. From this act of leaving, a polychromatic territory begins to emerge, affirming the urgency of growing within the richness of the diversity that shapes places.

Whilst, on the one hand, Mudar highlights plurality and crossing as its dramaturgical theme from its most visual perspective, on the other, it challenges us to discover that same plurality in the soundscape, blending instruments from different backgrounds, which bring us sounds that, in themselves, bear witness to inspirations from different corners of the world.

And then there is the body: the body that conveys a language that resonates throughout its entire structure. Portuguese Sign Language intersects with mimicry, the Visual Vernacular, physical theatre and dance. The Body as Territory, which draws upon a hyper-dramatic expressiveness, transforming what is told on stage into a universal liturgy.

This performance is turned towards the world. It is, in fact, an ode to the world we long for: a world open to the pleasure of curiosity, discovery and courage – but also to critical thinking, dialogue and consensus. To a love of beauty, poetry and lingering embraces. Mudar is a tribute to the very best of humanity and embodies the hope that this best may spread, so that our days too may be filled with hope.

Marco Paiva
Lisbon, 2 October 2025