Tremor Festival brings together the deaf association in the Azores
The Tremor Festival starts this Tuesday with a show that joins Ondamarela with the School of Music of Rabo de Peixe, the Deaf Association of São Miguel Island and local musicians.
“What we create is a spectacle based on music. It is a starting point, because it is universal, even for the deaf, and then each person, each group, each community, gives their input,” Ricardo Baptista, musician and co-founder of the Ondamarela artistic intervention project.
The Guimarães collective had already worked with the deaf association in the previous edition of the festival, but the discovery of ESMúsica.RP was “very interesting”, said the musician, adding that the material for this performance is new and “it was all built collaboratively with the students and teachers of the School of Music of Rabo de Peixe and with the users and interpreters of the Deaf Association of the Island of São Miguel. ”
To all of these performers is added “a kind of a third working group, which is a group of invited musicians from Ponta Delgada, incredible, super generous … who are helping to set up this concert.”
On stage will also be “some guests of the word, people who will help with the most poetic and word, around the imaginary” created for the opening of the festival.
Poetry comes into play with “a strong message” for openness, as a way of “trying to get across the idea that Tremor is a shout, a message, that the island leaves in a bottle and shoots the Atlantic.”
In addition to music, created in collaboration, and the word, sign language also plays a key role.
“It is clear that deaf people communicate a lot with sign language, and this is very interesting, from the performative point of view, of movement, and we use it. But it is also very interesting the grammatical form as the sign language puts things (.. .), the way he divides words, how he pampers words, how he says and does not say things, “he said.
Ondamarela, a collective founded and managed by Ricardo Baptista and Ana Bragança, develop “essentially community projects that connect to concrete places through artistic meditation” in different areas.
For this show, they return to work with the deaf community of São Miguel, a project “very important to set an example in the equality between the deaf and the hearing”, says Rodrigo Furtado, an ASISM user.
“We are not people with disabilities, with disabilities, we are equal to everyone else … People think it is strange, and then they see that we are people, we have abilities, we have the same rights, we can touch, we can feel the music, “said the young Rodrigo Furtado, who had already participated in the concert of the previous year.
Also, Maria de Jesus Lima is repeating and says she was surprised to be able to feel the vibration of the music, considering a “pride” to participate in a project like this.
This is also a valuable experience for the students of the School of Music of Rabo de Peixe.
Hannibal is 13 years old and has played trombone for five years. Curiosity took him to the school where he started playing the saxophone, went through the melodic and now it is with the trombone that it arrives at Tremor. He has already stepped onto the stage of Teatro Ribeiragrandense and is preparing to climb to the Teatro Micaelense “with confidence”.
A colleague on the trombone, the instrument that has played since the age of five, also the seven-year-old Martim feels “calm” with the idea of facing the general public.
But if everyone shows enthusiasm, trust is reserved for only a few.
The week before Ondamarela’s arrival, Leandro, 13, returned to school after his brother’s death had driven him away from music. He played saxophone, but that day he was given a melodic. That Saturday was also the first experience he had to practice in the orchestra with other school students, and he was intimidated by the attention he received.
“I do not like it, I feel ashamed, the first day I played [the melodic and that song], I was able to play the song from beginning to end and everything was laughing at me.” of fish.
Leandro is performing this Tuesday at the Teatro Micaelense. With him will be also Hannibal and Martim and all the other colleagues that compose the orchestra, as well as Maria de Jesus and Rodrigo, and several other users of the deaf association, Ondamarela, local musicians and all those who want to watch the show, which happens at 7 pm and has free admission.
