Ei! Marionetas / Teatro e Marionetas de Mandrágora

Ei! Marionetas - Encontro Internacional de Marionetas de Gondomar 2025

The boy who lived by the sea [ SHOW ]

• Teatro e Marionetas de Mandrágora
• M/3 . 35mins . free access


• There's a bit of everything here, both big and small. But to be able to tell you about what I'm bringing here, we have to open our eyes, put our ears on alert, take a deep breath, and keep our bodies alert so that we can open up our imaginations. Because here, what is, isn't, but what isn't, is!
  Boys and girls, young and old, let's meet the boy who lived by the sea.


• identity and territory, sense of belonging, exploration of local built and intangible heritage

The boy who lived by the sea

The power to be enchanted by what surrounds us allows us to think that it is often innocence. The beauty of small things lies in their simplicity.

We set out to discover the personality of this little child who lives by the sea, where everything she creates comes from nothing, where she sees beauty in everything, letting the power of her imagination infect her way of being.

But not everything that comes to the beach is shells and whelks. When garbage becomes everyday life, we can't help but be frightened. This is a reflection on what enchants us, the sound of the waves, the smell, the sea air and the sight of its slow loss, and it's up to us to take action to rebuild it, trying to find harmony. We can't give up!

what the festival has to say

This creation, which addresses our relationship with water, whether it be the sea or the river, takes us on a journey through the innocent gaze of moving objects. The show, which will tour the parishes of the municipality of Gondomar, will be an excellent starting point for discussion about marine pollution, but also about our relationship with the elements that surround us, nature, and its importance for our inner, social, and common well-being.

A beautiful show full of puppet games, but also integrating shadow theatre, as well as the manipulator actor who is also the narrator of this story. A fun moment, but above all a moment of contemplation, where we appeal to sensitivity, and where we feed something fundamental to all of us, imagination.

Teatro e Marionetas de Mandrágora

Teatro e Marionetas de Mandrágora is a professional puppet theater company with artistic direction by Clara Ribeiro and Filipa Mesquita and art direction by enVide neFelibata. The company was founded on April 2, 2002. In the symbiosis of a symbolic language that combines heritage and traditional legacy with contemporary society's thought and dynamics, often in a not-so-peaceful dialogue, a fundamental element emerges: the puppet. This element supports us in the search for our own cultural identity.

Our goal is to discover the aesthetic, visual, scenic, and dramatic potential of the puppet itself, as well as in its relationship with the actor, and in this discovery, explore the dramaturgy that characterizes us: to explore culture, belief, and legend allied with the city, technological exploration, and the speed of the global village. Throughout our artistic journey, we have presented various proposals to different audiences, including adults, youth, school, and family groups, as well as in basic and specialized training. One of our major commitments is the national and international tour of our projects. Decentralization, community work, partnership creation, and social and inclusive value are predominant concerns in our daily activities.

Over these 22 years, we have established the company as a contemporary artistic creation structure through dozens of show proposals presented nationally and internationally, whether they are our own creations or collaborations with other national and international cultural structures and entities. Our premise is to provide space for the creative freedom of our artistic team, ensuring the existence within the structure of various languages and diverse visions that unite in the common goal of developing the art of puppet theater. Reflection on social fragility issues and a keen eye on traditions and heritage form the basis of the Company's dramaturgy, consolidated in distinct yet simultaneously convergent perspectives.

Dialogue with diverse audiences and the involvement of creation in different contexts and spaces, as well as the intersection between entities and structures, is fundamental, creating multidisciplinary proposals aimed mainly at artistic communication with audiences. Noteworthy is our collaboration with numerous educational services in the implementation of activities in institutions such as monuments, museums, and heritage buildings.

art

links

• ei.marionetasmandragora.pt
• loja.marionetasmandragora.pt
• marionetasmandragora.pt
• facebook.com/marionetas.mandragora
• instagram.com/marionetas_mandragora
• youtube.com/@MarionetasMandragora

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that's how

It has now been a year since we challenged this artist, Joaquim de Sousa, to join the Mandrágora Theater and Puppets team. Today, on his birthday, we reflect on the creation of which he is the interpreter. A creation that premiered this year and was presented at this festival by the parishes, to school groups, and also in the Garden of the Municipal Library of Gondomar, of which we share some photographic records.

It was a creation that brought together several artists and reflects, in a sensitive and delicate way, on a child's relationship with the sea, with water, but also with the surrounding environment and the protection of nature, namely the protection of beaches and aquatic life.

Through a manipulation that crosses various techniques - table manipulation, shadow theater, object manipulation - we build an imaginary world that the artist reveals to our eyes, inspired by various elements, such as the canning industry, memories of the beach, and the trash present on the beach. Bringing these various elements together, he tells a simple story, which ultimately has no end, in the sense that there is a call to the audience, the viewer, for the ending of this story to be an active action towards what surrounds us, the protection of nature, the full enjoyment of natural spaces, and a relationship with animals with greater respect and closeness. Through this action, perhaps one day a happy ending will be found for this narrative. “It is up to us to protect the sea,” it is said.

In the gardens of the Gondomar Library, sitting on blankets and small colorful chairs, children, and adults alike watched this creation, accompanied by original music, under the canopy of trees. It was a pleasant morning, and the audience undoubtedly felt the concern expressed by the main character of this story and narrator, who calls us to take action, because we all deserve to enjoy the well-being that nature provides us, but to do so, we must value it, and only then can it be fully enjoyed.

At the end of the performance, the audience, eager with curiosity, went to investigate all the details of the stage set and the puppet. This is a creation by Teatro e Marioneta de Mandrágora, and we are sure that you will have many opportunities to see it again on stage.