ANA LUENA

The allegorical writing of that work has stimulating points of contact with our age, touching on the issue of globalisation and the increasing number of migrations in today’s world. Those who in a twist of fate must leave behind their reality, either chosen or forgotten, leave for the unknown, the void. They won’t allow themselves to look back. Ever. They survive knowing they will never return to what they were forced to leave. The only real destination is the path they have to walk. Leaving their place to become eternal wanderers. Always foreigners anywhere they are and stay, and thus the illusion of keeping on walking, of never being still. For those who leave their place behind, departure is always likely what’s next. That is case of the “warriors”, born in distant places, further beyond.

Ana Luena was born in Luanda, where she lived until 1982, already after the independence. Dramatist, director, and set and costume designer, she founded Teatro Bruto in1995, and she was its artistic director and resident stage director until 2015. She has a doctor’s degree in literary, cultural and inter-artistic studies from the University of Porto, and a master’s degree in theatre (direction) from the Lisbon Theatre and Film School. She directed “Lady & Macbeth”, a staged concert (Programa Criatório / Porto City Council); “É impossível viver” [It Is Impossible to Live], based on Franz Kafka and with actors João Lagarto and Sérgio Praia; and “O Filho de Mil Homens” [The Son of a Thousand Men], a novel by Valter Hugo Mãe (also in charge of the adaptation), among others. She is an invited professor at the University of Évora.