Theater
An egg, a chicken, vegetables and others like that
FIMFA Lx returns with more than 20 shows
One day for each festival year. From May 8th to June 1st, the 25th anniversary of FIMFA Lx – International Festival of Puppetry and Animated Forms is celebrated, in an edition that is spread across ten venues in the city and features many creations by women.
Sharing, risk, tolerance and empathy – these are the four words chosen by Luís Vieira and Rute Ribeiro to define the 25 years of FIMFA Lx – International Festival of Puppetry and Animated Forms. “We have dreams, ideas and projects, will and courage, but these don’t seem to be the times for dreamers. The world has changed. We need to build new horizons, regain confidence, open up our imagination and let ourselves be carried away by beauty, poetry and the extraordinary. Celebrate the power of puppetry and all these artists who continue to use their power to challenge, inspire and connect us, without borders or colours. This edition celebrates an artistic adventure and pays tribute to all those who share their creativity, their concerns, their ingenuity, their humour and their emotions with us and the audience”, they write about the 25th edition of FIMFA, that takes place from May 8 to June 1.
Over 25 days, there are more than two dozen shows presented by the festival, in several venues in Lisbon. As Rute Ribeiro highlights, this edition brings very different proposals and various creations by women. This is the case of the opening show, at Teatro São Luiz: A Doll’s House, inspired by the play by Henrik Ibsen, staged by Yngvild Aspeli, whose Moby Dick we already saw in the 2021 edition, today considered one of the world’s leading figures in puppetry. A play with human-sized puppets, which she brings to Lisbon with her company Plexus Polaire.
Another adaptation of a classic is The Rite of Spring, by Italians Dewey Dell, which takes the stage at Teatro Variedades, in co-production with Teatro Nacional D. Maria II. “A collective that we have wanted to bring to the festival for a long time”, points out Rute Ribeiro, speaking of these creators (three of them, sons of playwright and director Romeo Castellucci) who stage Stravinsky’s work with insect-inspired costumes.
Also featured is Epidermis Circus: The Weirdest Puppet Show You’ve Ever Seen, by the Canadian company SNAFU – Society of Unexpected Spectacles, that “mixes object theater and live projection, exploring the human body in a surreal and provocative way”. Among the Portuguese artists, there will be shows by A Tarumba (Luís Vieira and Rute Ribeiro present Miniature Short Dramas), the Porto Puppet Theatre, the Limite Zero company, Sonoscopia & Teatro do Ferro and Ricardo Ávila with Vumteatro. In total, there are 13 countries at FIMFA, which show puppetry and animated forms as different as robot vacuum cleaners, flying knives, eggs and chickens (after all, who came first?) or microscopic puppets.
On stage, the performing arts come together with painting, video, science and literature. There almost seems to be no limits. As Rute Ribeiro and Luís Vieira state, “creators from various latitudes, and unafraid to take risks, share their worldview, awaken emotions and questions, through multifaceted and unusual artistic proposals. The invited artists play with feelings, what connects people, their relationship with places and objects. They observe the world. They show other ways of seeing and understanding what is around us”.
25 years later, FIMFA continues to open horizons in Lisbon. “We’re still here!”, its artistic directors assures. And we, with them.
