I'm Dying Like a Country
John Romão / Colectivo 84
White Box
4th June | 17h20 | 75 min
Today, death and the notion of ending cross each other permanently on a day to day basis, without anyone
stopping or noticing it attentively. Death is like melted ice cream on the sidewalk, you can't taste it and when
you walk beside it you don't want to lick it. "I'm Dying Like a Country" (1978), a text by Greek contemporary
playwright Dimítris Dimitriádis, speaks of death in a territory devastated by civil war, political corruption and by
the subversion of morality, a tragic figuration in a kind of mash-up of all perversions and subversions. It was this
text that started us writing our own proposal, which joins the sweet taste of absolute decadence and the denial
toward the actual state of European societies with the end of the world, which happens slowly by the seashore,
with its tongue glued to the sand, looking for the ice cream. It's a show, so to speak, scatological, for trying to
understand what is the end of things.
CREDITS
Direction and scenography John Romão | Texts Dimítris Dimitriádis, Mickael de Oliveira | With Ana Ribeiro,
Cláudio da Silva e João Folgado | Music Daniel Romero (.tape.) | Sand sculptures Pedro Mira | Light design
Daniel Worm d'Assumpção | Artistic colaboration Cláudia Dias | Photography: Susana Paiva | Executive
production Colectivo 84 | Co-production Colectivo 84 / Penetrarte, Festival Citemor, Murmuriu | Support
Artistas Unidos, Bomba Suicida, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Ministério da Cultura - Direcção Geral das
Artes, ZDB | Thanks to: Ana Rita Osório, Andreia Bento, Elena Córdoba, Lara Silveira, Lázaro Romão, Marta
Furtado, Miguel Bento, Miguel Borges, Ruben Escamilla | The Colectivo 84 / Penetrarte is a structure
supported by the Ministry of Culture - Direcção-Geral das Artes and a structure associated to ZDB (Lisbon) and
Casa das Caldeiras (Coimbra).
BIO
BA in Theatre - Actor/Director, Superiour Theatre and Cinema School. International theatre course Nouvelle
École des Maîtres, by Rodrigo García. Trained with Jan Fabre, Wim Vandekeybus, Mónica Calle, João Fiadeiro,
etc. In theatre worked with Tiago Rodrigues, Jorge Silva Melo, Jorge Andrade, Nilo Gallego, Francisco Salgado,
Rodrigo García, Maria João Machado, Marcos Barbosa, Jean-Paul Bucchieri. Assistant director of Rodrigo
García (ES): Gólgota Picnic (2011), Esto es así y a mí no me jodáis (2010), Cruda, vuelta y vuelta, al punto,
chamuscada (2007), Arrojad mis cenizas sobre Mickey (2006), etc. Assistance to Romeo Castellucci in a
performance for Biennale di Venezia 2011. Directed Horror (2011), Agamémnon (2011), O arco da histeria
(2010), Velocidade Máxima (2009), Hipólito (2009), A direcção do sangue (2008), Why can i be me (2006), etc.
Award New Talents - Almada Arts and Creativity 2010. Teaching Theatre at Lisbon Superiour Dance School.