Melody Nolan (circus artist) and Omer van Soldt (interdisciplinary artist/filmmaker) come from different backgrounds both creatively and geographically. In uncovering one another’s practices, discovering creative niches and points of joined interest, they seek fresh ways of combining their abilities. The cities we live in shape us over time. Do we also have a role in shaping them? We can try to change ourselves to fit into a place or shift the composition of a place to accommodate ourselves. These efforts can be seen as a dialogue– a play between two parties which may or may not have conscious incentives to alter the other. We want to invite conversation with the inhabitants of a city about the interdependent relationship between ourselves and the infrastructure of our surroundings. They are currently working on Place/Make (working title), a site-based circus installation that takes place behind a street window. Sparking imagination about the multitude of stories that might exist in vacant spaces of the city, Place/Make is an effort to collectively reimagine the spaces we inhabit.

WETUMTUM is a collective with the designation of non-profit cultural association that promotes, develops and supports artistic projects and movements primarily geared towards children and families, encouraging community participation. WETUMTUM’s fundamental premise is that every human being is gifted with the ability to create, participate, and develop through contact with music and performance. We believe that this ability begins at an early age; therefore, our artistic work is conceived to go beyond mere contemplation. We seek, through playful moments, to achieve participation and interaction. Currently, WETUMTUM has 16 shows in circulation, 3 workshops and 2 installations, and it is also the creator and organizer of the Festival Papagaio – Ilhavo. Artur Carvalho, Bruno Estima, David Calhau and David Valente are the founders and directors of this collective. They share percussion as a basic learning instrument, as well as the search for individual enrichment through the integration of other complementary artistic areas, such as theater, movement, and circus arts. Both together and individually they have directed or participated in several artistic creations inside and outside WETUMTUM, including projects at Casa da Música – Porto, Culturgest – Lisbon, MEXE – Porto, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan – Japan, projects PARTIS (Gulbenkian Foundation), Erasmus +, Universidade Católica, Palau de la Música Catalana, among others.

Lali Álvarez Garriga is author, stage director, creator of participatory art projects, poet and teacher. Her work focuses on documentary and artistic creation inspired by reality, work in non-conventional spaces and research of spectator relationship and participatory creation, with the overriding theme of sustainable culture research. She studied Philosophy at the University of Barcelona, Stage Direction and Dramaturgy at Institut de Teatre of Barcelona. She also trained in audiovisual production, writing, politics and artistic creation in public space. Her pieces have premiered in theaters such as the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona, National Theater of Catalunya and Antic Teatre or at festivals such as Festival Grec, Festival Temporada Alta and FiraTàrrega, amongst others. In 2015 she directed the participatory project “TEMPS” with elderly people from a retirement home. In 2016, she directed her second text “Barcelona (against the wall)” with LAPúBLICA company which premiered at FiraTàrrega . The same year, she directed the participatory project “Catex, Felipa, Nosotros Assembly” with the participation of more than 150 residents and associations from the Poblenou neighborhood in Barcelona. Between 2017 and 2021 she was resident artist at Nau Ivanow Creation Factory, where she founded the company HuiBasa. In 2020 and 2021 she was the artistic director of the first two editions of “Escena Pilot”, Teatre Lliure’s theatrical teacher training and collective creation program with roughly 70 teenage participants from 5 different High Schools in Barcelona. In 2022 she created and directed the first edition of “The Unfinished Human Manifesto” at Fira Tàrrega, a long term participatory project that she is still developing. She teaches acting at EOLIA Superior Center for Dramatic Arts in Barcelona as well as teaching courses and workshops on reality-based creation, creation in unconventional spaces, and participatory artistic creation with the community.