PAULO DUARTE
SELFPORTRAIT
As I was born beside the sea the horizon is important to me. Despite being lured by the waves I never learnt how to swim.
Drawing was my first challenge…the notion of art came to me as a teenager. The Faculty of Fine Arts in Porto provided huge potential in terms of expression. After my degree and a stint in national education seeking new experiences, I went to the Ecole Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mézières.
Travelling and relocating have fuelled and continue to fuel my imagination and encounters.
I founded a company with a friend. Leaving after several years I joined another, also as co-artistic director.
Then I founded MECANIkA.
Its aim is to blend genres, seeking a personal theatrical production to interpret my view. The journey is a continuous process, from plastic arts to performing arts, without any hierarchy, avoiding obstacles and navigating multi-disciplinarity.
The link that I see between the manipulated body and the manipulating body is based on perpetual appearance and disappearance, back and forth between presence and absence, between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ images, substance and apparition. The distinctive dramatic architecture that stems from these junctions is bound by chosen themes, often recurring, such as the fragility of reality and relativity of meanings, as well as through the various mediums/types of images.
My progression, whether in my personal activities, collaborating with other artists, or in teaching, is part of a reflection on how the modus operandi of the creation. Each project/experience seeks the right balance between the constituent components; each collaborative mode aims to find its meaning, by articulating desire and skills, thereby enhancing capacity for artistic development...The fluid boundaries of the various forms of expression serve the freedom to experiment extending from contemporary art to dance, theatre, circus and sound, to new technologies...
PAULO DUARTE
ON (A FEW) DATES
1971
Born in Ovar
1974
Œillets's Revolution
1986
Move to Porto
1995-96
Co-scenographer for EntreTanto teatro's plays, Porto
1988-93
Degree in painting at the Beaux-Arts of Porto
1995
Painting and engraving exhibition and trypticTriades -
Gesto Coop Culturel / Labirintho Galeria in Porto
1994-96
Plastic arts teacher and independent artist
1996
Collective exhibition Miopias (sculpture and installation) - Casa da Companhia, Porto
1996-99
Degree of the ESNAM
of Charleville-Mézières
4th promo – special mention from the jury
1999
Co-founder, with David Girondin Moab, of the company Pseudonymo
1998
Exhibition Traces de Voyage (painting and installation) Galerie d’art IIM – Charleville-Mézières
2000
Move to Barcelona
(collaboration withJoan Baixas)
2002
Creation of the show A Hora do Diabo L’Heure du Diable
2000
Exhibition Mal’Aberta (drawing and installation) - Galeria OM Penafiel
2002
Move to Paris
2004
Creation of the show Subbruli
with Don Verboven and Uta Gebert
2004
Back to Barcelona
2005
Directon of I’m Not Always the Same with David Girondin Moab, and the students of 4h year,, AMK – Taideakatemia Turku, Finland
2006
Direction of Data de Caducitat with the students 3rd year (option gesture and objects), Institut del Teatre de Barcelona
2006
Live Pseudonymo
2003
Creation of the show Deep News
2006
Creation of the show Écumes with Nuria Legarda
2007
Move to Rennes
Codirection with Renaud Herbin and Julika Mayer of the company LàOù/marionnette contemporaine
2011
End of LàOù
2008
Creation of the show Alminhas
Petites Âmes
2010
Installation In folds with Morgan Daguenet and Nicolas Lelièvre - Gallery of the Triangle, Rennes
2012
Interactive installation Paysage construit with Morgan Daguenet, Champs Libres, Rennes
2012
Founder of MECANIkA
2011
Creation of the show PLUG
2013
Creation of the young audience show La Queue de Monsieur Kat with Fabien Bossard and Morgan Daguenet
2017
Final creation of the NOVO project
stage form with NOVO – La nuit
2015
Move to Montpellier
2016
First step of NOVO projet, installation
2019
Creation of the show ANDERE with Mila Dargies
2015-Today
Regular external lecturer for the Master's degree in creation and research in theatre studies at the University Paul Valery, Montpellier 3
2019
Direction of Happy Birthday 30/30 with the students of the Ballet Teatro school (dance and theatre) in Porto
2020
Creation of the show
Pour bien dormir
2022/23...
Creation of
POLAROID