Solange Lima

My project was to create a live performance with a local artist to perform to the local community. Dona Dinalva’s face, when I invited her to work (with me) at the Instituto Sacatar, will always be with me…giving me more strength to carry on working.

During her Sacatar residency,Solange Lima created a theatrical performance with Dona Dinalva. This local self-taught poet writes cordel, a limerick-like poetry that often lampoons current affairs or recounts traditional folk stories. Cordel is typically printed on cheap paper and sold in markets throughout northeastern Brazil. Dinalva, however, had never published her poetry, not until Vicky Shukuroglou (Australia), another artist in residence, illustrated and published Dinalva’s first chapbook, launched at Solange’s performance.

Since her residency, Solange, her husband Vincent and a host of volunteers, have produced FESTIT, an annual three-day eco-festival staged throughout the town of Itaparica. Musicians, muralists, clowns, acrobats and jugglers from all over the world have come to entertain the citizens of Itaparica and to promote ecological sustainability and proper use of local resources. The 4th FESTIT animated the streets of Itaparica during the last weekend of February 2015.