Mal de Ulisses (Ulisses’ Angst)
A project by Rui Catalão with migrant communities

Binaural Nodar resumes the collaboration with Rui Catalão through the hosting and co-production of his new project, entitled “Mal de Ulisses” (“Ulysses’ Angst”), which in May 2023 had a first artist residency with local migrant communities .

Portugal has witnessed in its recent history two poorly studied migratory experiences: those who left the country during the dictatorship and those who arrived in the era of the European Union. A depiction from a Portuguese society in rapid transformation,” Mal de Ulisses” puts into dialogue testimonies of a country that is disappearing and another that is emerging.

Traumatic tales of those who left their countries of origin in search of another future, in “Mal de Ulisses” former emigrants and young immigrants tell their story: why they left their family, their way of life, and the adaptation problems they faced.

With distinct creations, adapted to the presentation venues, and casts made up of immigrants or their descendants, “Mal de Ulisses” develops in several regions from north to south of Portugal. The work model followed advocates a progressive autonomy of local groups.

Conception, dramaturgy, text and staging: Rui Catalão
Performers: 3 community performers
Costume designer: to be defined in the community
Technical direction: João Chicó
Interviews: Madiu Furtado
Executive Producer: Marta Moreira
Production: Unreal
Co-productions: Teatro Municipal do Porto – Tivoli, Festival Todos (Lisbon), Futurama (Serpa), A Oficina (Guimarães), Binaural Nodar (Vouzela) and Teatro das Figuras (Faro)

Biographies:

Rui Catalão has a degree in social communication from UAL, has been a film critic since his adolescence at Jornal de Sintra and was a music journalist and literature critic at Público, where he still episodically collaborates. He also writes a monthly section in GQ magazine. As a playwright, he collaborated with João Fiadeiro, Ana Borralho and João Galante, Miguel Pereira, Tonan Quito, Elmano Sancho, Diana Niepce, Mihai Mihalcea, Eduard Gabia, Manuel Pelmus, Mihaela Dancs, Brynjar Bandlien, Madalina Dan among other, raising awareness and creating narratives based on personal experiences, which he called “The game of difficult questions”, which resulted, for example, in the theater workshops “Now you do it”, as well as the several plays he created in Vale da Amoreira with a group of young people of African origin who interpret their own stories, with narratives of war, life in the suburbs and the African diaspora: “And now we”, “Adriano no longer lives here”, “Fear on the way” and “The Mandjako Girl”.

Madiu Furtado Embaló (Bubaque, Guinea-Bissau, 1992). He left Guinea-Bissau during the civil war, when he was eight, and settled with his mother and brothers in Vale da Amoreira, where he lived for 16 years. His father stayed in Guinea. He was a journalist for the regional daily newspaper “O Setubalense” and collaborated with “Observador” newspaper. He has a degree in Social Communication and Marketing at the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal. He wrote the novel “One of Us”, about the African community on the south bank of the Tagus river. He is the author of the texts for “Under the distance”, the new play by Rui Catalão.