Friday, April 9, 2021, 18:00 EET (GMT +02:00)
Cape Verde
Director: Flávia Gusmão / Cape Verde
Actor: Monica Ardeleanu
Episode: Day 8. Story 8
about the Director
Flávia Gusmão
She was born in Lisbon in 1978 and she is Portuguese and Cape Verdean.
She studied theatre since she was fifteen years old in Escola Profissional de Teatro de Cascais and now, at 42, she is finishing her master in Theatre in Community in Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema.
She started working as an actress when she was 17, first in Theatre Companys (T.E.C. and Teatro da Garagem) and then as a freelancer, firstly in Portugal and then in Italy, Brazil, Scotland, Spain, Belgium, France and Cabo Verde.
The first time she came to Cabo Verde was ten years ago.
Her grandfather was born in Cabo Verde but emigrated to Portugal as a child and her mom never came to Cabo Verde until Flávia brought her there for the first time, ten years ago, on the 14th of April of 2011.
Since then she has been working a lot teaching and directing in Cabo Verde, specially in São Vicente, the island where she has moved to and where she lives (most of the time) with her mother and daughter.
For the last two years, she has been directing the theatre course at Centro Cultural do Mindelo with the group Kanizade where they did a lot of theatre plays and, now, during the pandemic, these video plays:
https://fb.watch/4A7Ndqt6YU/
https://fb.watch/4A7P9rdOrs/
https://fb.watch/4A7Rq98iHs/
https://fb.watch/4A7TXUibbc/
https://fb.watch/4A7WBnZyT5/
https://fb.watch/4A7YrqtdtG/
“I can say that my work as an artist has always had a biographical component in it. Like the play I did when I was pregnant with more 5 pregnant actresses and then after, the play we did about the experience of becoming mothers. Or the first play I did after my first travel to Cabo Verde when I tried to search for roots in here and, in a way, tried to recover or reconstruct a biography I didn’t have access to.
In my biography I could write the plays or the movies I’ve been as an actress or the prizes I have won , but I prefer to finish with this:
I’m an hybrid and I’m also a Cape Verdean that was born in the diaspora and had the privilege of working in what I love since I was young, but I never had the chance to learn the cape verdean language since I was a child. I am trying to give that opportunity to my daughter and I am also trying to feel useful as I continue trying to be an artist in these difficult times.”
about the actor
Monica Ardeleanu
Monica Ardeleanu graduated in 2008 the Theatrical Art Department of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Craiova and since 2008, she is part of the troupe of the Craiova National Theatre.
In more than 12 years of her career, she played under the baton of the greatest Romanian directors, such as Silviu Purcărete and Mihai Mănițiu, she collaborated with important artists of the new generation: Bobi Pricop, Andrei Majeri etc. but also starred in productions signed by Robert Wilson (USA), Tim Carroll (UK), Janusz Wiśniewski (Poland), Charles Chemin (France).
Monica Ardeleanu has performed many plays that have been in the programme of many national and international festivals: the International Theatre Festival in Izmir, Turkey; International Shakespeare Theatre Festival in Tel Aviv, Israel; International Theatre Festival “Varna Summer” Bulgaria; Gyula International Shakespeare Festival, Hungary; International Shakespeare Festival in Gdańsk, Poland; European Festival of Performing Arts Timișoara; Sibiu International Theatre Festival, etc.
In the current season she plays in 4 productions: Operațiunea Marte (Operation Mars) by Alexa Băcanu, directed by Dragoș Alexandru Musoiu, Aias. Eseu despre demență (Aias. Essay on Dementia) after Sophocles, directed by Mihai Mănițiu, Athens By Night by William Shakespeare, directed by Charles Chemin, Năpasta (The Trouble) by I.L.Caragiale, directed by Kincses Elemér, the latter being one of the longest-running titles in the repertoire of the National Theatre of Craiova.
