Project X was created to share CMT’s experience in the design and implementation of community projects with students training in Music, Community and Education on the masters’ programme in Music Teaching at Universidade de Aveiro (UA) and with several UA students doing masters’ and PhD projects.
Between 2013 and 2018, Project X allowed CMT to work with a diverse set of “communities” (students with special needs at Universidade de Aveiro, older people from Central Social de Calendário, people from Aveiro’s Ukrainian community, prisoners from Estabelecimento Prisional Especial de Santa Cruz do Bispo, prisoners from Estabelecimento Prisional Regional de Aveiro, young people with special needs from Associação Pais em Rede e Cercis de Sta. Maria da Feira, young people with special needs from APVISPT21 in Viseu), including them in various co-creation experiences over several weeks, culminating in a public performance. Project X came out of multiple motivations to find space in art for the creation of universes where differences are bridged and we can seek the essence of what makes us human.
Since 2016, the project has developed a deeper relationship with CMT’s work, particularly with the “performance” Viagem a Dentro de Nós (Journey Within Us), which took place at Pianoscópio and generated a free and inclusive process where artists of various disciplines engaged in creative dialogue with extraordinary people.
In 2017, a group of musicians who had established a regular practice at Cercis de Sta. Maria da Feira met “Orquestra-Frágil”, an extraordinary group open to anyone who wants to join, and this meeting resulted in a unique show. “As mentioned previously, X marks a meeting point where, through artistic experience, each participant has the opportunity to express their individuality and create a common voice with others. X is also the mysterious factor that surrounds a creative process that is rewritten as it goes along and whose final result is unknown. X is, finally, the mark of a game of human relationships in which there are only winners. The final show emerges as a quasi-manifesto for communal art that can reach all individuals irrespective of their social status, gender, age or culture.”
In 2018, Project X built on some work carried out over several weeks at Gamelão e Porcelana e Cristal (GaPC) in Viseu, culminating with the presentation of the “performance” Porcelana, Cristal e Pássaros (Porcelain, Crystal and Birds), which involved the GamellN Ensemble (the group of people who had been part of the project with GaPC) and MCrE Ensemble (a group of students on the masters’ course in Music Teaching at Universidade de Aveiro).
