Conceived and directed by Paula Diogo, “Aurora (or Book)” combines music, theatre and dance in a performance that is partially performed with eyes closed, targeting secondary and higher education students and other organised groups.

Paula Diogo explained to the Lusa news agency that the choice of a stage capacity of 50 people is related to the objective of having proximity to the audience to explore the possibility of visual impairment.

“We wanted to have the bodies of the performers close to the bodies of the audience, who in the first phase are seated around the area we occupy and then invited to enter the space,” she explained.

The initial name of the show – a co-production of the Má-Criação company and Teatro Viriato – was simply “Aurora,” as Paula Diogo wanted to address “the idea of ​​dawn as a possibility for a new beginning, to start a new day, a new cycle.”

“I started writing the text and, at some point, the story of someone trying to write a book entirely composed of landscapes that are not visual, but physical sensations, emerged,” considering “how blind or visually impaired people see and perceive the world,” she explained.

In this context, the fiction of this person trying to write a book began to intertwine with “the attempt to rediscover the world through senses other than sight.”

Paula Diogo stated that the show proposes “a slowing down of the daily rhythm to try to listen, see, and feel in a more refined way” for just over an hour.

“Everyday life conditions us a lot to what is visible – to screens, to televisions – and ends up disconnecting us from all the physical sensations of the body, which are what truly anchor us in the world,” he emphasised.

João Lopes Pereira, Paula Diogo (rotating with Márcia Lança) and Renato Linhares are the performers and co-creators of “Aurora (or Book)”.