Sacatar SOLO
This curated, by invitation only residency opportunity takes place once a year at Sacatar’s oceanside estate in Itaparica.
2018 – Baiana System (Brazil)
Photography: facebook.com/BaianaSystem
2016 – Laurie Anderson (USA)
“Being at Sacatar saved my spring. I had been casually promising to do way too many things – a sketch for a book, a performance with a cellist with all new material, a stand up show I’d been planning for a while. I hadn’t actually started on any of these projects and the deadlines were starting to be serious. For example I began to have to do interviews for things I hadn’t written yet. Plus I’d promised myself for quite a while to learn a little ukulele. So things had, let’s say, really piled up. I thought that somehow I could get all of them done if I could just get out of New York for a while, away from the constant meetings, and focus on this work. So I imagined I would do all of them when I was at Sacatar, In the back of my mind I suspected that this was a very unrealistic plan but when I arrived in Sacatar I plugged my portable studio in and started to work anyway.
And guess what? The place is so magical and calm. Wild ponies dancing out on the beach, palm trees swinging, everything soft and clear. And an atmosphere of peacefulness and energy. And the greatest staff and of course the founders Taylor and Mitch who – lucky for me- happened to be there. We had the greatest time talking about all sorts of things- the distant primary elections in the US, movies, books. We even got to see some candomble and concerts. And, most magic of all, I finished the sketch for the book and wrote the show “Letters to Jack” which I did three days after I arrived in the states at the Kennedy Center in DC. And! I managed to swim, keep up with tai chi and even play a little ukulele. It just does not get better than that. I owe a very large debt of gratitude to the Sacatar Foundation. These kinds of things don’t magically happen. People build them and make them happen. So thanks Taylor and Mitch for building such an exquisite and open and beautiful place to think and work.”
Laurie Anderson (USA 2016) at the Festa de Yemanjá in Misericórdia and Itaparica, Bahia (photos by Mitch Loch, 2016)