NÔT
MARLENE MONTEIRO FREITAS
Dance, theatre and performance
Premiere in Spain
Country: Cape Verde and Portugal
Duration: 1 hr 45 mins
Warning: the show contains visual stimuli
Choreographer: Marlene Monteiro Freitas
Choreography assistant: Francisco Rolo
Cast: Ben Green, Henri “Cookie” Lesguillier, Joãozinho da Costa, Mariana Tembe, Marie Albert, Miguel Filipe, Rui Paixão, Tomás Moital
Set design: Yannick Fouassier, MMF
Lighting design and technical direction: Yannick Fouassier
Costume design: MMF, Marisa Escaleira
Sound design: Rui Antunes
Stage manager: Ana Luísa Novais
Props: Cláudio Silva
Set design intern: Emma Ait-Kaci
Artistic consultancy: João Figueira, Martin Valdés-Stauber
Production and distribution: P.OR.K
Executive management: Rui Silveira - Something Great
Tour production management: Niki Fischer - Something Great
Show production management: Janine Lages – P.OR.K
Co-production: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Festival d’Avignon, Berliner Festspiele, Kampnagel International Summer Festival, Culturgest, MC2 – Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, Le Quartz, La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand, Maison de la danse Lyon, La Villette, La Comédie de Genève & La Bâtie – Festival de Genève, Onassis STEGI, Teatro Municipal do Porto, PACT Zollverein
Artist residencies: O Espaço do Tempo, Alkantara, OPART, E.P.E./ESTÚDIOS VICTOR CÓRDON, Onassis AiR, MC2 – Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, Kampnagel International Summer Festival
Institutional support: Dançando com a Diferença
Acknowledgements: Carlos Duarte, Atelier MC2 Grenoble
NÔT’s dramaturgical research received support from Onassis AiR in 2025.
The renowned Cape Verdean choreographer Marlene Monteiro Freitas has developed one of the most distinctive styles of stage performance. Her work, which spans dance, theatre and performance, is structured around accumulation, transformation and excess. Trained in Lisbon and at the prestigious P.A.R.T.S., founded by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, her career has developed in dialogue with the European theatre scene, including Avignon, Lyon, Vienna and Berlin.
NÔT (‘night’ in Creole) draws inspiration from The Thousand and One Nights and Scheherazade to portray survival under patriarchal terror. Eight performers, who are both dancers and percussionists, move through a phantasmagorical world of love and war, captivity and freedom.
With a distinctly carnivalesque feel, the piece creates an intense and chaotic world in which identities blur and opposites clash. Layer upon layer of intertwining narratives, with art as a fundamental tool for confronting a world in crisis.
In previous works such as Bacantes, Jaguar and Guintche, the movement oscillates between the ritual and the grotesque, the musical and the physical. Her work has been recognised by international critics “for her ability to push the boundaries between beauty and violence, control and excess”.
ENGLISH
