Meeting with João Brites and Workshop about the Conscience of the Actor Onstage

On Tuesday, April 14, at 3 p.m., the Porto Superior School of the Arts (ESAP) has the privilege of hosting a meeting between director João Brites and the students of the Bachelor’s degree in Theatre.

This meeting will be followed by a Workshop on the Actor’s/Actress’s Consciousness on Stage at 6:00 PM. During this session, Juliana Pinho will provide a practical demonstration of the acting method used by the company Teatro O Bando.

The workshop is open to all interested parties, but registration is required via the QR code in the image.

João Brites is a dramaturg, director, and set designer. Following the April 25th Revolution and his return from exile in Brussels in 1974, he founded Teatro O Bando, which he still directs today from its headquarters in Vale de Barris (Palmela). His background in Engraving, Monumental Painting, and Scenography at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels – La Cambre (Belgium) informed his unique approach to theater, establishing him as a singular artist in the Portuguese theatrical landscape.

As the director and artistic leader of Teatro O Bando, his work is characterized by: Dramaturgical Adaptations: Creating stage versions of non-dramatic Portuguese and foreign texts. Collective Theater: A focus on community-driven and collaborative creation. Symbolic Devices: The invention of “stage machines” and highly plastic visual concepts. Actor Training: Guiding performers toward the “actor-artist” ideal and the system of Consciousness on Stage. This method is rooted in notions of inner dialogue, the “intermediate character,” and the dissonance between the planes of interiority, orality, and physicality.

Brites was a professor at the Superior School of Theatre and Cinema (Lisboa) for 22 years. He also served as the artistic director of the International Street Arts Festival and director of the Performing Arts Unit for EXPO’98. In 1999, he was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of Merit, and in 2011, he curated the Official Portuguese Representation at the 12th Prague Quadrennial. Founded in 1974 as one of the oldest cultural cooperatives in the country, Teatro O Bando defines itself as a collective that embraces aesthetic transfiguration as a form of civic and community participation.

At its core, the company’s origins lie in street theater and children’s animation activities within schools and cultural associations, integrated into regional decentralization projects.