Events

Esta - Festival de Estarreja

The first edition of ESTA (Estarreja’s International Festival) took place in 1999, as a natural consequence of the extremely positive results, in socio-cultural development terms, of the activities promoted by ACTO in Estarreja from 1996 to 1998; with more than forty performances and several exhibitions and workshops, aiming to prepare audiences for the Performing Arts and bring awareness to the diversity of contemporary scenic narratives to the town’s inhabitants.

Throughout the years this international and multidisciplinary Festival had a carefully selected and varied program which included theatre, dance and music performances, video, photo and art exhibitions, street performances, book markets… leading to a reflection on the proposed themes through debates, lectures,

working group meetings and public seminars with writers and artists - consolidated this Festival as an extraordinary cultural event.

Themes like “Globalization”, “A Crossroad of Cultures”, “Multiculturalism”, “Cultural Diversity and Citizenship”, “Urban Rituals in an Europe in Transformation" or “Love” inspired the first six editions.

The ESTA 2001 edition, besides the changing of its Spring format to an Autumn Festival, also took place in the newly built aTelier– ACTO’s current working space.

Unfortunately, due to financial detrainments caused by shortcuts in subsidies, the 2003 and 2004 editions weren’t able to follow neither the same logic of programming nor the same international dimension.

PARALELO 40ºN

Are there any stations beyond this one?
Happening, event, appropriation, participation...
Reinvention of this station's memories, an intervention on this environment's affective identity …
Action, site specific, artists-in-residence…

Fatela's Railway Station - Fundão, August 2004;

PARALELO 40ºN (parallel 40ºN) was the starting point of a multidisciplinary festival that aimed to open doors to the world: Fatela's railway station - nearby the town of Fundão - constitutes an intersection point between universes, a transfer door to other spaces, geographical or poetical ones. This parallel draws a line crossing Philadelphia, Indianapolis and Denver, in North America; Beijing and Bautou, in China; the mystic city of Samarcanda, in Uzbequistan; Derweze and Turkmenishy, in Turkmenistan; Ankara, in Turkey; Corfu, in Greece; Akita, in Japan…and, Fatela - Fundão, in Portugal.

The main characteristic of this event was that, all the productions presented, of the various artistic fields, were specifically created for this local. These creations produced by the interaction of the several, national and foreigners, guest artists - among themselves and with the affective, social and human environment - transformed this railway station into a centre of cultural activity; place for artistic experiencing and creation. The event combined artists-in-residence programs, workshops, performances, musical events, plastic arts interventions, photography, video-art, literature, among others.

Youth Workshop Festival

In 2000, ACTO organized a Festival, specially conceived for the young public of Estarreja, the aTelier da Juventude.
This event, which took place in the aTelier when this future cultural structure was still being built, pretended to create an active behaviour of this town's youth towards its cultural live.
The strategy was to encourage them by inviting their participation in various workshops, instead the common passive assistance of the programmed performances; and, like that, developing these youngsters' sense of community, the symbol of citizenship.