The performance ›Bocarra‹, which effectively means a very big and open mouth or maw, departs from female singing repertoire from Northern Portugal and Galicia and negotiates experiences of violence, bitterness, and estrangement. Understanding many of these songs as traditions of non-conformity and as veiled and unresolved resistance against heteronormative roles, choreographer and dancer Luísa Saraiva works with movement vocabulary that deals with the continuum between care and violence within physical closeness and the particular vocalic qualities of these musical forms. Bodies are placed discursively and performatively in the voice, and are shaped and transformed by the voices that produce them.

A range of musical instruments developed specially for ›Bocarra‹ appear alongside the three performers like organic beings. Activated through movement and gestures, they become extensions of their inner organs, breath and physical bodies. ›Bocarra‹ is a striking choreographic exploration of ways to sing through and with bodies in space, beyond binary and exclusive categories of vocal registers and ran.

Choreography & Artistic Direction: Luísa Saraiva Performance: Luisa Fernanda Alfonso, Alexandre Achour, Luísa Saraiva Instruments: Inês Tartaruga Água Sound Design: Francisco Antão Light Design: Cárin Geada Costumes: Isabelle Lange Self-Defense Training: Zeina Hanna, Manuel Pérez Bouza Voice training: Fabíola Fernandes Production Management: Övgü Özen /Apricot Productions (DE), Mariana Costa / Associação Calote Esférica (PT)

Production: Associação Calote Esférica & Crybaby GbR. Co-production: Festival Dias da Dança/Teatro Municipal do Porto Rivoli.Campo Alegre; PACT Zollverein; La Manufacture CDCN Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Funded by: the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia / NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste, Direcção-Geral das Artes/República Portuguesa - Cultura and Kunststiftung NRW. Supported by Residencias Paraiso, Colectivo RPM.