A Broken Part

by Pedro Antunes & Mauro Matos

St. Elizabeth of Portugal (1271- 1336)

A Catholic Pop Performance

A Portuguese Queen that, although under her husband’s control, defies him and goes out into the streets to care for the workers and feed the people. The legend tells that one day she was caught by her husband leaving the house whilst hiding bread in her apron. She lied telling him it was roses she was carrying and when she opened the apron the bread had been transformed into roses.

This story is here dismantled and transformed into visceral visual experience where the queen is placed as real replica of the saint’s image represented by a stone sculpture, creating a figure of living metaphors and vivid allegoric pictures.

Beyond the narrative of the legend we assist to the people’s fight against an authoritarian and petrified society that is staged by a group of workers that perform the breaking of this cold sculpture of a roman catholic saint, carving away a sexuality and sensuality that emerges out of her ruins. The broken saint gives birth to a carnal woman of brown skin , a new body that emerged out the rigidity and immobility.

Under the ruin and the destruction we have the queen’s son trying to shape and construct the spirituality and memory of his own mother, wanting to embrace her body in a intimate and maternal moment, that has been ripped a long time ago.

Direction & Text Pedro Antunes, Mauro Matos

Created & Performed by Milton Lopes, Pedro Antunes, Hugo Caroça, Ariana Lebron and Mauro Matos | Dramaturgy: Hugo Caroça | Choreography: Ariana Lebron | Actor Coaching: Milton Lopes | Costumes & Sculpture: Philip Li | Music: Ruído, Tiago de Almeida | Production: Manager Sarah Lyttle | Lighting Design: Jinhee Park | Photography: Olga Belchior | Video: Alex Forsey

Produced By Kerry Irvine
Supported by Performance Initiative
Developed in Scene Pool