LAVRAR O MAR – AS ARTES NO ALTO DA SERRA E NA COSTA VICENTINA is an artistic programming project in the field of performing arts that takes place in Aljezur, Monchique and Odemira, a rural area, with low population density, in the southwest of Portugal.

Using the languages ​​of theatre, dance, new circus and music, we develop interdisciplinary artistic creations that show and reflect the local culture of these territories. In addition to artistic creations and residencies, we host national and international artistic projects and organize artistic laboratories.

The cultural and artistic programming is developed around the binomial performing arts and local culture, with the aim of involving local populations of all ages, Portuguese and foreign, but also travelers and tourists, who, upon arriving in this territory, discover the culture of this place through the arts, its research and practice, seeing the implementation of projects taking place in nature or in built spaces, references of a strong rural culture and identity in this region. At the same time, through a regular and long-term cultural dynamic, of high artistic quality and relevance and that acts in depth, we seek to promote critical thinking and collective reflection on the major issues of the day, offering the public new visions and new proposals to face the challenges of the present and the future, of Portugal and the world.

In addition to its immediate cultural impact, this project has actively contributed to the promotion of cultural diversity, environmental sustainability and the social and economic development of the regions where it operates, asserting itself as an example of how art can be used as a powerful tool for the transformation of communities and territories, especially in rural areas.

Project Financed by

Under a partnership established with the Municipality of Portimão, Lavrar o Mar – Cooperativa Cultural was invited to design an artistic program for the celebration of the Centenary of the Elevation of Portimão to a City (1924-2024) which was born from a reflection on identity of this city based on its relationship with art. A unique and creative exercise that resulted in an artistic program - made up of several chapters - which, as a whole, seeks to reveal the energies and experiences that, on a daily basis, the city offers in order, through this perspective, to stimulate a new feeling of belonging.

Connecting various urban spaces to artistic creation, we imagine strategies that challenge people to experiences that intensify their connection to the city and its memories. Throughout 2024, we will discover together how art can dialogue, modify and renew the identity of a place.

To this end, we invited Portuguese and foreign thinkers, artists and companies to confront the city and its centuries-old existence so that they can then share with different audiences their analytical, poetic and dreamlike visions of themes, issues and relationships that populate the lives and days of each one.

This is a programme that you can live intensely. An exciting and fun journey between Theatre, Dance, New Circus, Music, Visual Arts, Installations and Performance, between the city of Portimão and its people.

You can participate directly to experience this celebration of the city firsthand through the arts or follow each event through the development of a collection of thoughts and perceptions that could lead to a new collective and vital energy. This is all we hope to achieve!

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Artistic Programme

Organization

The Cooperativa Cultural LAVRAR O MAR seeks, with this project, to create a place of belonging and welcome in an extremely deserted and isolated area of ​​the municipality of Aljezur. The old Bordeira primary school, which was closed and vacant, is being rehabilitated to be transformed into a space for meetings, experimentation, knowledge exchange and artistic creation. The objective is to create an Arts Center, which radiates to other places, where the intersection between local culture and artistic creation is stimulated, but above all the construction of a common place that is renewed by the hands of the inhabitants and artists who, together, they will develop laboratories and shows.

The architectural project designed by Ana Jara, Carlos Gomes and Patrícia Viegas, from the Arteria studio, foresees the valorization of the original structure of the building, through, for example, the uncovering of the porch and the recovery of the two existing rooms and the spaces of the former playground will be treated for vegetable garden cultivation. The completion of the rehabilitation of the building – the usufruct of which was ceded by Aljezur City Council to Cooperativa Cultural LAVRAR O MAR for 10 years – is scheduled for the end of 2024.

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Project Financed by

A transdisciplinary artistic programming project in the municipalities of Santiago do Cacém and Odemira.

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BOWING comes from English and refers to the verb “to bow”, to bow. In many Eastern cultures, when greeting each other, people clasp their hands close to their chests and bow to each other as a sign of respect and greeting. In the agricultural world, those who work the land lean over it, sometimes for a lifetime, to touch and fertilize it. In dance, this curve is what Doris Humphrey refers to when she talks about the arc between jumping and falling, our response to gravity. It is at the junction of dance movements, work and human respect that this artistic project is built.

BOWING – Artes, Culturas, Integração is a project of integration and social inclusion through art by the Cooperativa Cultural LAVRAR O MAR, lasting two years, aimed at migrants from Asian countries (India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China) who live in the municipality of Odemira (Portugal) and, for the most part, work in multinational intensive agricultural companies. The artistic practice of dance, music and words aimed to value and discover the cultures that were involved in the project, with the aim of creating a common ground for sharing knowledge and sensibilities.

This project led to the creation of BOWING DOC (2023), a website that was born from the desire to share what BOWING was, which had a strong impact on the lives of the people involved and on the territory, but also from the need to create a resource that could come to be useful to others to continue the work in the practice of inclusion and integration through art, contributing to a network of knowledge and experience.

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Project Financed by

MIRAGEM! is an artistic and pedagogical project, integrated into the “ODETE - Odemira, Território Educativo” program of the Odemira City Council. Aimed at students aged 3 to 18, it takes to the various schools and nurseries in the municipality of Odemira (considered the largest, most isolated and dispersed in the country), a program of shows including dance, theatre, music, literature, local culture, artistic experimentation, among many other areas, always looking for connections to the curricular subjects of the different school years.

Project Financed by

TOURO AZUL is a program of Human Experiences between Local Culture and Art. Routes through landscapes, towns and private environments, lasting between two and seven hours, specially designed to offer tourists visiting the territory between Santiago do Cacém and Sagres, the opportunity to touch a land full of mountains and water, by the hand of who lives in it and sculpts it. A joint initiative developed by Cooperativa Lavrar o Mar, Associação Rota Vicentina and CACO – Association of Artisans of the Municipality of Odemira in collaboration with local inhabitants, artisans, associations, agents and artists.