Mélanie Ferreira & Daniel Matos

The Dependência Aberta project, by Mélanie Ferreira, consists of choosing creators with whom she wants to spend time researching and creating, in a format of greater proximity, while at the same time inverting the format of creators choosing the performers. These invitations for collaboration appear because Mélanie Ferreira believes that the creative act has to be true, intelligent, intense and promising and, not being able to take it on alone, she decides to make her body survive through someone else's head. There is thus an assumption of dependence and a need for coaching so that the existence of this performing body can have even more meaning and reach a purer state; without this requiring the dependency to be closed on the other. It is rather an open dependence, where both bodies neutralize, converge and renew each other. Therefore, being in the process of creating a solo is assuming that “I continue to lose myself in my body, so that reconfiguring is necessary and precise, so that the return is the novelty and the constant present.”.

Mélanie Ferreira was born in Switzerland in 1996. Since 2017, she has been working as a performer with several creators. In 2022, she started her project Dependência Aberta [Open Dependence] (DA), which is a series of solos performed by her, but created by artists of her choice. This series includes Tiago Vieira and Daniel Matos. In 2024, she performed in the pieces C A R C A Ç A [C A R CA S S], by Marco da Silva Ferreira, Atsumori, by Catarina Miranda, and Durarei por Paz e Nunca por Mal [I Shall Last for Peace and Never for Evil] (DA), by Daniel Matos.

Daniel Matos is a choreographer, performer, visual artist and curator. In 2017, together with Joana Flor Duarte, he founded CAMA – Associação Cultural, a structure for the development of the performing arts located in Lagos. He is artistic co-director and programmer of PEDRA DURA – Algarve Dance Festival, as well as co-curator of Verão Azul – Transdisciplinary Festival of Contemporary Arts. He is also responsible for the creation of CenDDA – Algarve Dance Documentation Centre.