Title: “The City of Mathew: A Viseu Campanology”
Author: Luís Costa
Co-production: Binaural/Nodar and Viriato Theatre
Artistic collaboration: Rui Costa
Collaboration: youths from Saint Anthony’s House, Viseu
Partnerships: Cultural Heritage Department at the Diocese of Viseu, Chapter of Viseu Cathedral, Third Order of St. Francis, Saint Anthony’s House
Public presentation: 31 May 2014 at 8.30 pm
Locations: seven church towers in Viseu historic centre.
Lenght: 49 minutes
“The City of Mathew: A Viseu Campanology” is a sound composition by Luís Costa to be performed exclusively by bells of seven churches and chapels from the city of Viseu to be activated by dozens of young volunteers who will follow a visual based score with instructions related to sound perception of the city itself, creating a specific and unrepeatable phonosphere of one of the iconic cities in the religious history of Portugal. Two routes will be proposed to the audience to be followed simultaneously along with the interpretation of the work, both culminating in Largo da Sé, the main cathedral square.
“The City of Mathew: A Viseu Campanology” draws from various sources and influences that contribute to a narrative that acts on the emotional activation of the work, which tries to escape a purely sonic event: First, the symbolic and liberating aspect of youths to access belfries steeples, considered hard to reach places, but also the narrative connection to the theological significance of Matthew, a saint who’s name is associated with the longstanding fair city of Viseu. The Matthew of the Gospel that condemns ostentation in the practice of three fundamental Jewish virtues: almsgiving, fasting and prayer, an absolutely contemporary idea, in times where solidarity is becoming an instrument for social promotion and legitimization.
“The City of Mathew: A Viseu Campanology” is co-produced for Viseu A… a festival which will take place between 24 May and 1 June. A contemporary art program performed by many people and by many artists. Hundreds of people in various places, Viseu, São Pedro do Sul, Mangualde, Tondela and Nelas will enter into dialogue with Theatre, Music, Dance and New Circus. A unique experience to celebrate and feel today’s world within the horizon of the arts.
Author’s biography:
Luis Costa (1968). President of Binaural/Nodar (São Pedro do Sul, Portugal). Curator, programmer, organizer and sound and video documentarist. Since 2006 he has developed documentation and educative sound and video projects in the mountain ranges of Gralheira, Arada and Montemuro. Coordinator of Nodar Rural Art Lab, a space for multimedia artistic research in the rural village of Nodar, where more than a hundred artists and researchers were already hosted. He coordinates the Memory Archive of Dão-Lafões and Paiva, a multimedia research, cataloging and mapping project of the collective memory of territories from the districts of Viseu and Aveiro. He directed the sound/video experimental documentary ” Where is the Source of my Paiva? “, premiered in 2011 during Paivascapes #1 Festival. As a sound artist, he released in 2011 at Edições Nodar, with English sound artist Jez riley French , the CD ” Sonata for Clarinet and Nodar”. In 2011 he co-edited the catalogue and double CD ” Three Years in Nodar – Context -Specific Artistic Practices in Rural Portugal” and in late 2012 he published a book of essays and interviews, “Living an Ancient World: Texts on Art and Territories (2012 -2008)” and co-edited in 2014 de book+DVD “The Sense of Pain: Two Works by Manuela Barile”, published in conjuction with Edições Nodar and the Italian publisher La Parete della Caverna
Viseu A. ..
MAI 24 to 01 JUN’14
An organization of Viriato Theatre (a structure funded by the Secretary of State for Culture, DGArtes and Municipality of Viseu)
Consulting and Artistic coordination: Giacomo Scalisi and Madalena Victorino
Festival co-financed by Mais Centro-Regional Operational Programme of the Centre, QREN, European Union/European Regional Development Fund and CIM Viseu Dão Lafões
Partners in the host program : Municipality of Mangualde, Municipality of Nelas, Municipality of S. Pedro do Sul, Municipality of Tondela/ACERT and Municipality of Viseu.