During 2023-26, Companhia de Música Teatral will continue to develop its geographically comprehensive project, with a significant part focused on the North of Portugal, has happened throughout its existence.
This is a privileged area for CMT, as there are longstanding collaborations with several municipalities, and especially with Vila Nova de Famalicão, where several entities have shown a special appreciation for our work, which naturally stimulates the development of new ideas in the region.
However, we will reinforce the scope of our artistic activity throughout the country (and inf fact, internationally), which results from the agility and flexibility of the organisational and creative model that we have been perfecting over time.
With its history (twenty-five years in 2023), CMT has proven that this mode of operation is adequate, efficient and productive given the distinctive characteristics of our model of artistic creation and management. Over these years, the work of the CMT has been disseminated throughout the national territory and the issue of decentralisation has long deserved our best attention. By choice, and thanks to funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, we have been disseminating the results of the Opus Tutti (2011-2014) and GermInArte (2015-2018) projects throughout the country, through initiatives such as:
- i) the cycle PaPI (Portable Play to Play), designed to meet the needs of high artistic quality along with high portability, has reached dozens of municipalities spread along the whole country;
- ii) the collective instrument Gamelão de Porcelana e Cristal, has already been in “residence” in 12 in almost all regions of Portugal;
- iii) GermInArte Transitive Formations, which made a long and intense journey throughout the country (covering approximately 50 entities of all regions of Portugal).
It should also be noted that, more recently, the restrictions imposed by the pandemic led us to find opportunities to develop new creative and training models — with the help of the Zoom platform — which has placed us close to audiences not only from many locations in the country, as well as Brazil, Guinea, Belgium, United States, Israel, Thailand, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Spain, etc.
That is, it has been very stimulating to find our creative “nursery” in strategic partners such as the Municipality of Vila Nova de Famalicão, while the conceptual model is agile enough to be reflected in strategic partnerships for this quadrennium with municipalities such as Castelo de See Loulé and Fundão. In other words, we believe that with the type of structure we have, and given the geographic dimensions of the country, our approach must be both national and international.
In essence, our geographic strategy is allied to a work customization strategy, based on a careful human relationship. “The tuning of birds, people and flowers” has been a matrix in the creative impulse, but it is also a leitmotif of our general philosophy of action. The establishment of relationships of trust and stability with partners on the ground are central ingredients of our creative construction and this is a line of strength without geographical limits. In addition to this reasoning, some of the founders have and maintain personal and family roots in the North Region, which facilitates the development of a substantial part of the Company’s design and production activity.