Performance: Joana Craveiro's "Invisible Archives of Portuguese Dictatorship"
Duration: 00:32:16; Aspect Ratio: 1.818:1; Hue: 194.529; Saturation: 0.247; Lightness: 0.214; Volume: 0.173; Cuts per Minute: 1.890
Summary: Invisible Archives of Portuguese Dictatorship
This performance-lecture centers around the investigation of
non-official, personal, hidden and unknown archives of several types
pertaining the Portuguese Dictatorship (1926-1974), the Revolution (25th
April 1974) and the Ongoing Revolutionary Process (1974-1975). My
attempts at understanding official historical discourses from the
investigation of ‘small history’ and anonymous participants led me into
the discovery of hidden archives, to be unearthed and performed. Files
from the former Political Police (PIDE) pertaining to anonymous
citizens, prisoner lists posted at universities in Lisbon, and reports
issued by the National Commission for Aid to Political Prisoners between
1970 and 1971, are juxtaposed with personal letters from two anonymous
participants in the revolutionary process and clandestine pamphlets
demanding freedom for the prisoners and the fall of the fascist regime.
These archives – present and absent – not only tell stories about their
historical moment and its anonymous protagonists, but also raise
numerous questions about about how History has been recorded and what
History is being transmitted in the present, especially in the context
of Portugal, where the 40th anniversary of the 25th of April Revolution
is now being celebrated.
Joana Craveiro is a PhD candidate at the Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies of Roehampton University, in London, where she is currently researching performance and transmission of memory politics in dictatorial and post-dictatorial Portugal. She has a Master of Drama in Directing from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, a Degree in Anthropology from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa – Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas (New University of Lisbon Faculty of Social and Humanities Sciences) and a BA in Acting from the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (Higher Education Institute for Theatre and Cinema). She is an assistant lecturer at the Drama and Theatre department of School of the Arts and Design (ESAD.CR), Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, since 2007. She is also the artistic director of Teatro do Vestido, in Portugal, founded in 2001 and for which she has written, directed and devised over 17 pieces. In 2012 the Portuguese Association of Theatre Critics awarded her and Teatro do Vestido a special commendation.
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