Sitters
VERA MANTERO e EMILY DA SILVA
M12
The piece contains full nudity.
Bilhete: 7,5€ Amigos de Serralves, Estudantes, Jovens, e >65 anos: 3,75€
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Co-creation and performance: Vera Mantero and Emily da Silva
Visual conception and costumes: Sara Leme
A co-production: O Rumo do Fumo
60'
Sitters’ is Alice Neel’s term for people who sat for her to paint. In Sitters the audience are invited to follow two figures across space as they think, speak and act, explore their individuality and acknowledge one another’s body in a dialogue with Alice Neel’s oeuvre. As they study each other constantly, these two characters project stupefaction, melancholy and vulnerability, as well as intimacy, ease and freedom. A fascination with other people, which oriented Alice Neel’s life and work, also guides them across space to investigate how to represent themselves as they engage with their surroundings. If the subjects in Neel’s oeuvre could move, how would they do it? If they could speak, scream, sing, what would they reveal? What do these figures carry in every posture while ceaselessly instigating us with their gaze?
Related
Vera Mantero studied classical dance with Anna Mascolo and was a member of the Gulbenkian Ballet between 1984 and 1989. She became one of the leading figures of Nova Dança Portuguesa, having begun her career as a choreographer in 1987 and presented her work throughout Europe, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Canada, South Korea, the USA and Singapore. Since 2000, she has also been exploring vocal work, singing a repertoire by various composers and co-creating experimental music projects. She represented Portugal at the 26th São Paulo Biennial in 2004 with ‘Eat your heart out’, created in partnership with Rui Chafes. In 2002, she was awarded the Almada Prize (IPAE/Ministry of Culture); in 2009, the Gulbenkian Art Prize for her career as a creator and performer; and in 2025, the Plataforma Prize in Santiago de Compostela. In 2024, she donated her archive to the Serralves Foundation. She regularly teaches composition and improvisation in Portugal and abroad.