A theatrical marathon.

Rosa Mota has accompanied all my childhood and adolescence. I clearly remember seeing her on television, as she won several Olympic Marathons of Los Angeles [1984] and Seul [1988] and feeling the patriotic enthusiasm around “Rosa” through the euphoric reactions of adults. I believe that patriotism after April 25th Revolution was rebuilt and regenerated thanks to the international charisma of characters such as Rosa or Fernando Gomes.

Another important axis of the work is the word META (goal, mark) which in Portuguese means the end of the race, and in Greek refers to self- referentiality: the concept about itself. I wanted to link the concrete place within Rosa’s sport universe to a place in my own creative universe: a symptom of the most recent artistic creation, which is its tiredness of the meta (-language).

The Name of the Rose refers to a novel by Umberto Eco. In the last chapter of the book, Adso, an old man, looks at his past and comes to the conclusion that the memories we care for only remind us of things we lost and that no longer exist. He brings light to this thought with a proverb in latin that goes like: stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus, meaning: the ancient rose still remains in the name, we have nothing but names.

This performance looks back to the history of Rosa Mota, but aims to make of this glorious past a path to the opening of meaning in the present, at the time of the show. It will never be a linear narrative and biography. It will always be a Rose within a Rose within a Rose, which in the end will cut the Goal.

Pedro Zegre Penim

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Text | Pedro Zegre Penim and Hugo van der Ding
Cast | Rosa Mota, Mariana Magalhães, Pedro Zegre Penim, Hugo van der Ding, Joana Magalhães, Mafalda Banquart, Xana Novais and Luísa Osório
Light design | Rui Monteiro
Video | Jorge Quintela
Photography | José Caldeira
Production | Elisabete Fragoso
Co-production | Teatro Praga / Teatro Municipal do Porto – Rivoli

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Length | 90min
M/12