Based on an Idea, Practices, Works and Writings by Vera Mantero
Concept and direction Ștefania Ferchedău
Choreography & performance Vera Mantero and Mădălina Dan
Set Design Andrei Dinu
Sound and Stage Management Alexandros Raptis, Alexandru Andrei
Visual Identity Daniel & Andrew Studio (Andrei Turenici)
Producer The Institute of the Present (www.institutulprezentului.ro)
Co-producer O Rumo do Fumo

Produced in the frame of Timișoara 2023—European Capital of Culture
Rumo do Fumo is a structure funded by the República Portuguesa - Cultura | DGArtes - Direcção Geral das Artes

We can only observe the past. In each and every moment the present we are inhabiting, becomes the past for somebody else. The same can be said in relation to the way our gaze meets the immensity of the universe or the personal histories. The distance travelled by the gaze to meet its object turns everything into past.

How is history becoming movement, how is a theme or an interest becoming movement, what can be uttered through movement and what procedures to use are the issues at the core of the “Lucky Dust” performance, created by Vera Mantero, Mădălina Dan and Ștefania Ferchedău, in a Romanian-Portuguese coproduction by The Institute of the Present and O Rumo do Fumo.

“Lucky Dust” is triggered by a selection writings and performances of the Portuguese choreographer Vera Mantero, dating mainly from the late 1980s and the 1990s, together with recent texts written during the wo

rking process in 2022 and 2023, and has generated two solos performed by Mădălina Dan and Vera Mantero.

A body is what we are in the world. Then there’s a number of things we can do and which can project us out of our bodies. But we cannot leave our body temporarily, we cannot do so until a pain passes, for example. No one can get rid of their body; we cannot exist beyond our body. It is as if there really was a destiny, a corporeal destiny: everything that will happen in our body that we cannot control, be it good or bad, is our destiny.

[Vera Mantero, My Body and the Body of Other People, 1988]

“We are our age, we are our demons, we are our energy. Anatomic body, phantomatic body, humoral body, fixed biography body, preserving artistic persona body, self-sabotaging in real life body. Companionship of hormones, intense emotions, flush of feelings. Hormones that deform you, emaciate you, make you somebody else. You can only defy them with a huge exploded laugh.”

[Mădălina Dan, Entities, notas do processo LUCKY DUST 2023]

Acknowledgments to all those who contributed to the development or showing of the co-production in 2022

Mário Afonso, Alexandra Bălășoiu, Alexandra Gîrbea, Cosmin Manolescu, Cátia Mateus, Rita Monteiro, Cristina Potra-Mureșan, Vera Santos, Ezequiel Santos

Funders The project is part of the national cultural programme “Timișoara—European Capital of Culture in the year 2023” and is funded by the Municipality of Timișoara, through the Center for Projects.

Cultural project co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund.

O Rumo do Fumo is supported by República Portuguesa—Cultura | DGArtes—Direcção Geral das Artes

Partners FABER, AREAL | space for choreographic development, SAC/ @ Malmaison