Zia and Manuela were present.

RTCP conference in Portalegre, 7.11.2023

Professional meetings are, increasingly, a precious moment for those who can give themselves or manage to ask their managers for the time to participate. With more and more cultural professionals talking openly about mental illness, exhaustion, depression, senseless rhythms, these moments of encounter - when we can be together, hug each other, look into each other's eyes, smile, talk – are more than necessary, they are urgent.

But, even acknowledging the importance of this, several of us left the Portuguese Theatres and Cinetheatres Network (RTCP) conference in Portalegre regretting that our professional meetings cannot be something more. I felt, and heard other colleagues say, that we always remain on the surface; we get together to listen to the description of projects; it seems like we always start from the beginning, from the basics; we don't go into depth. It is not enough to describe a project, of course. Because each project brings problems, doubts, surprises, unexpected challenges; it demands from us sensitivity, openness to learn, ability to adapt, creativity, honesty. Some of these words were heard in one or another meeting I attended (I didn't attend them all), but we didn't go beyond that, that is, stating the words. Nothing more was said.

It is also clear that not everything was like this. And I write today to share what was the highlight of the RTCP conference for me: the presence on stage of actress and director Zia Soares and culture councillor Manuela Ralha.

Zia was presented as the first black artistic director of a theatre company in Portugal. Well, the ones she founded herself… (Praga and Teatro Griot). It seems ironic to make such a statement. She did not miss the opportunity to remind us (once again) that she is invited to these meetings as a “token”. How many times will she have to say it before we start questioning ourselves about the absences in the room, on stage and in the audience? To act on them? She also shared with us that teatro Griot, which has been operating for 14 years, must have been invited to present its work in 2-3 theatres among the more than ninety that form RTCP. She questioned how many of these theatres will have a black person in a leadership position (or among the staff?). And towards the end of the session, she looked around the room and asked, “Who are the non-black people in this room?” Those present felt confused and indecisive. I must have seen about five arms raised. The question we are usually asked is “How many black people in the room?” We have gotten used to hearing it, yet we are not acting on it. But Zia turned things around for us: “Who are the non-black people in this room?” All of us, except Zia, in that place of “the violence of being the only one”, that artist Grada Kilomba talks about.

“Before we talk about participation we have to talk about accessibility.” This is how Manuela Ralha began her intervention. In the morning, when I entered the auditorium, I found her in the last row. There was no option, she had to stay there (some people might be thinking that we should be satisfied, because in other theatres she would have stayed behind the last row, the only space she would have access to – no, we are not satisfied, we can't be). Manuela continued: “We all talk about programming, getting involved, participating, but we forget that there is a segment of the population that is blocked right at the entrance, that cannot participate, cannot attend, cannot even be in the audience.” She spoke about what everyone knows today, which is that, although accessibility is a criterion for RTCP accreditation, the majority of theatres in the network is not. A piece of knowledge upon which, once again, we do not act.

I was “hidden”, “protected”, among the many people in the auditorium attending the session. But the interventions of these two women made me feel painfully aware of my presence. What good is knowledge if it doesn't become consciousness? What is the point of knowledge if, returning to our workplaces, we resume a routine that does not question, does not bother, allows us to ignore, allows us to pretend that we do not know, hidden and protected as we are in our daily lives.