Lisbon’s festivities are back!!
MAY 28 - JUNE 30
The Festas de Lisboa will finally start again. After two years of a forced stop, due to the pandemic, this is a long-awaited return by all Lisboners and by the protagonists of the month of June: artists, collectivities, marchers, and all those who keep the party alive in the neighborhoods of Lisbon.
INEEWS was present for the presentation of Festas de Lisboa, parties that are intended to be with the city and for the city, the celebration of June will therefore be even more special. Between Popular Marches, concerts, cinema, theater and exhibitions, fairs, and Thrones of Santo António, the Lisbon City Council and EGEAC – Equipment Management and Cultural Animation Company propose a joyful and popular, diverse and inclusive, experimental and surprising program.
The festivities open in May (the last Saturday of the month) with Tito Paris. In the show “What unites us” – a collective message of hope that is important to emphasize in the current context of war that shadows the world – the Cape Verdean musician and composer brings together on stage a group of great voices: Cremilda Medina, Joana Amendoeira, Paulo Gonzo and Djodje. A concert to dance to the sound of mornas and coladeiras by the river, in the gardens of the emblematic Torre de Belém, also celebrating the 40th anniversary of the artist’s career.
The Popular Marches are also back, signaling in the best way the start of the month of June with the first exhibitions at Altice Arena (3rd, 4th, and 5th), starting at 9:00 pm.
On the night of Santo António, the Marches perform again, this time on Avenida da Liberdade, starting at 9:45 pm. A parade led by the Marcha Popular de Vale do Açor, the guest of this edition, and with the participation, for the first time, of the Marcha Infantil das Escolas de Lisboa.
This year, the city’s Regional Houses – embassies in the country’s capital of regional culture – are also joining the Festival program, taking folkloric bands, tunas, bass drums and Fado to Quinta das Conchas for a two-day meeting (25th and 26th).
Fado is once again king at Castelo de São Jorge, the privileged stage of these unlikely musical encounters. Ricardo Ribeiro joins jazz pianist João Paulo Esteves da Silva (17th) and Teresinha Landeiro plays unpublished duets with artists Agir and Mimi Froes (18th). Two nights are dedicated to the song of Lisbon, Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, under the motto Fado no Castelo.
And if Fado is king, Sardines are the queens of the Festivities – presenting themselves in this edition with a new image. Speaking of which, it’s also time to reveal the top picks of this year’s creative contest, which was once again flooded with proposals from all over the world. Out of a total of 6 winners, 5 are Portuguese and one comes from Turkey. Escola EB1 de Travassô, in Águeda, was chosen by the Turma da Sardinha jury, which also awarded honorable mentions to three more school sardines.
Taking advantage of the commemorative holiday of the Day of Portugal, Camões, and the Portuguese Communities, we reserve a surprise for the city, on the 9th, 10th, and 11th. A hand and a foot, a mouth, a nose, an ear and an eye will circulate through the gardens and squares of Lisbon, in a performance starring the company Snuff Puppets, a community of artists in Melbourne.
The festivities will end at Praça do Comércio with the concert “Cheira a Lisboa”, in homage to the 100th anniversary of Parque Mayer – the birthplace of Popular Marches and the epicenter of Lisbon’s artistic life. On stage, the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, under the direction of conductor Cesário Costa, accompanies six great voices of today: Anabela, FF, Katia Guerreiro, Luís Trigacheiro, Lura and Marco Rodrigues, who recreate 22 popular music classics in the clothes of the arrangers Filipe Raposo, Pedro Moreira and Lino Guerreiro. An unprecedented show, on the 30th, to hear timeless songs that tell the history of the Park and the city and some rarities, such as “Santo António”, by João Villaret, which was censored in 1956.
As is already a tradition, the Museum of Lisbon – Santo António has prepared a special program dedicated to the Saint that the Festivities celebrate, with concerts, guided tours, and exhibitions.
Lisbon Mistura, Festa da Diversidade, Arraial Lisboa Pride, CineConchas, Bairro em Festa, and many other festivals are also held in Lisbon to enjoy and live for more than a month.
The festivities are about to begin. It smells good, it smells like Lisbon!
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