FOGO LENTO
transdisciplinary artistic research
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The TUM-shhh project intersects scientific methodologies with artistic practice, transmuting research into a trajectory of creation and erudition.
This convergence yields two primary instances of dissemination:
- a live reading accompanied by video, tailored for secondary school students, who are afforded the opportunity to contribute their perspectives to the discourse surrounding our relationship with the forest;
- and a hybrid performance, wherein dance, voice, and video are inextricably interwoven, resonating on a subconscious level with the experience meticulously constructed through both rational and sensory inquiry throughout the research process.
Research and Methodology
Over the course of a year, Costanza Givone traverses European landscapes marked by environmental destruction and ecological metamorphosis. She treks through the Mata de Leiria and scorched forest territories in Portugal, crosses the ghost forests of Iceland, explores boar-inhabited woodlands in Italy, and climbs the arid hills of Sikinos, Greece, where trees barely reach fifty centimetres in height.
Filming with handheld devices, she is driven by a desire to inhabit these shifting landscapes, treating them not merely as physical spaces in flux, but as intimate territories. The central inquiry permeating the entire creative process is:
Who am I in the face of a disappearing forest?
Unknown Figure, Pedroso and Seixelo,
Vila Nova de Gaia.
The forest is envisioned as a realm of the subconscious, of myth, and of transformation. Within it, she seeks not only what is visible, but that which reveals itself incrementally.
In a journal, she transcribes and compiles the vestiges of these crossings: fragments, impressions, and subtle indications of the forests she navigates—which, in a sense, also navigate her. Each entry represents an attempt at approximation, an attentive listening to the silent narratives inscribed upon the landscape.
This journey is not merely an intimate dialogue with the site, but also a trajectory of erudition, developed with the invaluable consultancy of Associação Verde.
Later, dramaturg Alex Cassal and filmmaker João Vladimiro joined the process to co-create a work that synthesises the gathered experiences: a short film accompanied by a live spoken text.
The work will be shared with dozens of secondary school students.
How will our question resonate with them?
Who are we in the face of a vanishing forest?
Unknown author, Iceland 1916, arboreal ghosts where a geyser now emerges.
TUM-shhh | Performance
Target audience: adults and youths aged 15 and over
A dancing body—perhaps a human yet to come, a presence in the throes of metamorphosis.
Sound emerges as a pulse and a hybrid language: an electronic drum kit capable of both shrieking and vibrating. Voice and breath become integral to a soundscape devoid of protagonists.
And, naturally, the video: a testament to our outward odysseys and perhaps our inner world as well—a sensitive archive that reveals traversed landscapes alongside internal states of being.
The alternation between darkness and shafts of light constructs an experience where the proximity of the audience and the density of the shadows establish a metamorphic space, akin to a forest transitioning from day to night.
In this realm of possibilities that is the theatre, we pose our question:
Who are we
in the face of a vanishing forest?
Performance Premiere: September 2027 (TBC)
Film Screening and Live Reading: January 2027 at CAMPO
Tour of the Agrupamento de Escolas dos Carvalhos: February – May 2027
Artistic Credits:
Concept and Performance: Costanza Givone
Musical Composition and Performance, Video Co-creation: João Vladimiro
Costume Design: Svenja Tiger
Dramaturgical Support and Writing: Alex Cassal
Movement Consultancy: Raul Maia
Vocal Coaching: Clélia Colonna
Lighting Design: Rui Azevedo
Scientific Consultancy: Associação Verde
Executive Production: Margarida Fragueiro
Production: Fogo Lento
Residencies: Fogo Lento/CAMPO, Piccolo teatro della Rosa (Italy), A cicládica (Greece), Teatro da Palmilha Dentada
Partnerships: PNA (National Plan for the Arts), Agrupamento de Escolas dos Carvalhos
The project emerged following the "O Tempo das Árvores" (The Time of Trees) research period, which encompassed a month-long residency in Iceland and an investigative phase in the Mata de Leiria.