Marta Freitas ⁄ Balleteatro (FITEI 2016)

During the classes, this unconventional teacher tries to awaken the teenagers’ critical faculties, getting them to stand up to the “established order”. The teacher is tried, just like Socrates in Athens, and the students themselves testify to the whole story, in the way that they see it and the way in which they try to resolve it. The sense of tragedy is evident from the very first moment and an undoing can be sensed in the very first voices. 

The Balleteatro Professional School, which was set up in 1989, came about through, and is now an integral part of a project to design and develop contemporary dance, theatre and performance: the 'balleteatro', now the resident group at Coliseu Porto.Over three years of intensive training, students of theatre are encouraged to create and develop experimental projects and work with guest directors, so that they can explore differently authored universes. - Isabel Barros

Marta Freitas has a degree in Performance (ESMAE) and one in Psychology (UM). She took a Master’s degree and PhD in Cognitive Sciences (UM). She is a successful playwright and 18 of her plays have already been put on. She leads creative writing and theatre writing workshops. She has also developed a significant career as an actor. She is director of the theatre at ESAP’s Department of Theatre and Cinema, where she also teaches. She is a teacher on a range of professional arts courses. She is director of the Company Mundo Razoável (Reasonable World).