MANUEL TUR

What do we disclose and conceal when we raise or lower the curtain? What tricks, gestures and gimmicks do we put into use on stage, both on the long and brief scenes of social life? And even more important: what characters and roles do we play for ourselves, inside our head? What do we disclose and conceal in the solitude of our inner stages? What happens backstage, under the skin? And what is left in the end? What do we have left when the show is over and there are no more reasons to act? The answer might be the deepest emptiness, the deepest loneliness. Perhaps there’s nothing more real than the fictions we create for the others and ourselves. Perhaps our lonely show is the only possible reality.

Manuel Tur was born in Porto, in 1985. He attended the Academia Contemporânea do Espectáculo and the School of Music and Performing Arts, in Porto. He started his professional career as an actor in 2003, and he regularly works as actor’s director, teacher, assistant stage and film director, and dubbing both animation and real image series. He directed “Uma Bailarina Espe(ta)cular” [A Spe(cta)cular Ballerina], a piece for one ballerina and one box with text by Regina Guimarães. In the scope of the company A Turma, which he co-founded, he staged “Tu Acreditas no Que Quiseres” [Believe What You Like], based on Sam Shepard; “Os que Sucedem” [Those Who Succeed], by Luís Mestre; “El amor es un francotirador” [Love Is a Sniper], by Lola Arias; “Longe da Vista – Um Projeto Sobre a Despedida” [Far From Sight – A Project on Farewell]; “Corpos de Combate” [Fighting Bodies] (based on testimonies by trafficked women); and“Retrato de Família” [Family Portrait], with texts by Strindberg and Dea Loher.