JOANA SÁ - CORPO : TERRITÓRIO — VARIAÇÕES SOBRE INQUIETAÇÃO
O MUSEU COMO PERFORMANCE
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Upon purchase of Serralves ticket
25% discount on the purchase of the ticket for 2 days. Cumulative with the regular discounts (Students and over 65 years old).
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''Corpo : território — variações sobre inquietação'
For semi-prepared piano, bass drum and snare drum, transformed by exciters
Rooted in the volcanic geology of the Azores, this work listens to the planet as a restless body and explores restlessness as a planetary, bodily and relational condition: vibrational, tectonic and imaginative. The ever-changing ground beneath our feet echoes a time in which extraction has become the dominant mode of relating to the world, yet the planetary body resists control, heralding other forces and possible outcomes.
Developed through field recordings, collaborative research, improvisation and experimentation during residencies on Faial and São Miguel islands and at Fundação de Serralves, the piece is also deeply marked by the experience of the traumatic wildfires that swept through her village of Frádigas, in the Serra da Estrela Natural Park, in 2025 — the largest wildfire in Portugal’s history in terms of area burned.
As in all of Joana Sá’s solo works, the piano is transformed into a different instrumental apparatus. In ‘Corpo : território — Variações sobre inquietação’, the piano is, above all, a recording instrument — a skin attuned to subterranean geological movements, a site where invisible forces converge.
The field recordings were captured in a variety of contexts: during the August 2025 wildfire in the village of Frádigas; on the islands of Faial, São Miguel and Pico; and at demonstrations in Lisbon and Ponta Delgada. They also include recordings of Joana Sá’s heartbeat and of Teresa Silva’s baby before birth, as well as fragments of Camané’s interpretation of ‘Inquietação’ by José Mário Branco, featuring a piano arrangement by Joana Sá.
Technical and Artistic Credits
Creation, Artistic Direction, Musical Composition, Field Recordings and Performance — Semi-prepared Piano, Bass Drum, Snare Drum and Exciters: Joana Sá
Co-creation — Musical Development Support and Onstage Luthiery Structures: Luís J Martins
Co-creation — Movement/Performance Support: Teresa Silva
Co-creation — Visual Concept and Lighting Design Consultancy: Daniel Costa Neves
Lighting Design and Operation: Tela Negra
Sound Design and Operation: Suse Ribeiro
Photography: Daniel Costa Neves
Design: Ana Viana
Production: Menos Muito Mais CRL
Support and Co-production
This project is supported by DGArtes and the Portuguese Republic.
Co-produced by Culturgest, Walk & Talk, Fundação de Serralves and gnration.
Related
A composer and pianist, Joana Sá’s work is characterised by transdisciplinarity, experimentation and a search for artistic (de)formats. Her solo work includes a body as listening – resonant cartography of music (im)materialities, a recent project spanning multiple outputs and formats, as well as the solo trilogy à escuta | o aberto (2010–2016), which was central to her PhD in Performance/Music, completed in 2020 at the University of Aveiro (UA) with a scholarship from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). She performs at leading venues and festivals nationally and internationally, is active in several ensembles, and has released several albums and published a book. Together with Luís J Martins, she founded à escuta, an artistic collective dedicated to creative practice and interdisciplinary reflection, developed within and in collaboration with communities in the Serra da Estrela region, where she serves as co-artistic director. www.joana-sa.com
Crédito de imagem: Vera Marmelo