Coisas que Soam
Performed at festival Caldas Late Night 2025, Caldas da Rainha,Potugal
I
We write a poem,
we say it out loud
maybe, we sing it?
We break it into lines,
then we break those lines into thin stripes,
then we break those stripes into tiny pieces!
Break, break, break.
We break the breaking…
And then, comes the mending.
II
Paced by our own attention,
we play,
![]()
we dance.
In a joyful overlapping
while dancing to a poem-song,
tiny, tender creatures of fabric and rice peek at us.
They join.
III
We’re singing together,
we listen to them,
we are circling!
And we are changing form!
An object-organ-instrument
much dear and warm.
We take its pulse,
unfolding a rhythm.
A mindful pace -
We begin to sing.
![]()
We write a poem,
we say it out loud
maybe, we sing it?
We break it into lines,
then we break those lines into thin stripes,
then we break those stripes into tiny pieces!
Break, break, break.
We break the breaking…
And then, comes the mending.
II
Paced by our own attention,
we play,
we dance.
In a joyful overlapping
while dancing to a poem-song,
tiny, tender creatures of fabric and rice peek at us.
They join.
III
We’re singing together,
we listen to them,
we are circling!
And we are changing form!
An object-organ-instrument
much dear and warm.
We take its pulse,
unfolding a rhythm.
A mindful pace -
We begin to sing.
A performance piece concerning the poetics of sound and gesture, through active listening and play. Born from an ongoing collaboration, Coisas que Soam is a visual (re)search into points of contact between sound, movement and objects. This shared universe was guided by three words: pedra, ponte, rio (stone, bridge, river) - together they created a poem, a song. Drawing from practices of improvisation, storytelling and puppetry, we developed game-like structures through which we perform.
In this performance, we move with two tiny fabric bags as we listen to a poem play. We play and manipulate them, activating their animism. Together we navigate through the three symbols present in the poem. Articulating the energies of giving and receiving, expansion and contraction, of touching and being touched, the performance shelters both the individual and collective movement. Shifting the audience’s focus from object to bodies, from bodies to object.
In closeness, the contours are blurred and we navigate ambiguity, with care and warmth.
In this performance, we move with two tiny fabric bags as we listen to a poem play. We play and manipulate them, activating their animism. Together we navigate through the three symbols present in the poem. Articulating the energies of giving and receiving, expansion and contraction, of touching and being touched, the performance shelters both the individual and collective movement. Shifting the audience’s focus from object to bodies, from bodies to object.
In closeness, the contours are blurred and we navigate ambiguity, with care and warmth.
Performance in collaboration with Laura Silva Barroso
Photos: Lúcio Silva