Ciganos (Gypsies)

Ciganos (Gypsies)

1st mounting - 1995
After being received with applauses by the public and by the critic, the first version of Gypsies, besides traveling for several Brazilian cities, being presented to thousands of students of several schools, took part of the 1st. Festival of Portuguese Language, in Lisbon and of the 1st. Meeting- ”Ciganos, different but alike”, in Aveiro and it traveled for forty days for several cities of Portugal. Some books of Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós were adopted at Portuguese schools, from the strong impact caused by the show.

The Ponto de Partida brings the public, with Gypsies, a dense work full of beauty, in that the audience feels before an accomplishment marked by the excellence. Regina Bertola, always in the lead of the contemporary theatrical staging, is careful in the construction of each detail put in scene, so that the show, in its whole, never slides for the improvisation or the casual. Gypsies is well resolved as adaptation and as staging in all aspects. Clara Arreguy - Newspaper Estado de Minas


Of the reasons for doing
The mounting of the Gypsies is fixed on two pillars.

Bartolomeu's text, its poetic force, the words to hide and to reveal the history, the secrets they reveal, the mystery they keep, the openings and the horizon, the transitory and the eternal, the magic of, when counting a boy's history, to rescue pieces of the childhood of all of us is a fundamental part of the immense “patchwork quilt” that configures our state of Minas Gerais.

The taste of trying, alive again, the gypsies' time. That colored and noisy race to break the monotonous silence of the small city. Their shine, the sonority of their language and their music, their clothes to make them princess or demons in our fantasy, but always magic and powerful to wake new desires and remote fears.


Of the research
The characters were created by the actors and to the basic text, that it is maintained integrally, they incorporate passages of other texts from Bartolomeu as: Mário, Indez, Para se Criar Passarinhos, Por Parte de Pai, O menino de Belém. From that tasty mixture the text of the show was born.

The research on the gypsies, besides countless readings, happened in an enormous tent, around of the fire, where a powerful gypsy family gave us a present with the secrets of their rituals, their myths, their language - essential factor of their unit, their family and social organization.

During that contact with the gypsies, the force of that oral and millenarian culture conquered us definitively. The fidelity to their roots close to a frightening capacity to adapt, their power to resist the so many prejudices and persecutions, their condition of being wandering, transitory and almost eternal.

It is with respect and affection that the show tries to show nuances of the culture of that people that brotherly presented us their hospitality and their history.

The research of the music put us in contact with our musical memory and with the gypsy music of the world. Therefore in the show there are Brazilian, Flemish, Spanish, Russian, Indian songs, that are marked by the trail of the guitars, the touch of the castanets and their exuberant movement.


Of the staging
The staging reinforces the research of the Ponto de Partida of a language for the Brazilian musical where not only the songs have a special treatment, but all the show has a musical configuration, with a rhythm strongly demarcated and with scenes that are drawn as in a choreography. There are also the elements that walk through all the show and that are the registered mark of the Ponto de Partida.

The city they present is built with parasols and umbrellas and the gypsies are counted with immense cloths.

The light once again is scenografic, seducing the public's retina so that it surrenders to the magic.

In spite of being based in a solid research, the gypsies that appear in this show are not real. They are images kept by the author's memory and by our own fantasy. The costumes reinforce that proposal.

It is a show built in the persecution of the beauty and of the simplicity and, it surely has a poetic and entertaining result.
The author

Bartolomeu was a silent boy, of attentive eyes and ears. In Papagaio,a small country city of Minas Gerais, where he was born, he grew up dreaming about the sea. “Far away from the sea we invent the ocean.”

In Belo Horizonte he studied at Benedictine school, thinking about being a friar. He was graduated in Philosophy and he specialized in Education. He worked several years with Education and his projects were turned to the children.

During the years he lived in Paris, studying art-education, he liked to read on the edge of Seine for hours and hours. It was in Paris that wrote his first book. “I was longing for Brazil and so I wanted to write about the impossibility of the things, when each one has its room.”

“The Fish and the Bird”,a history-poem that tells of the love between a fish and a bird appeared. That first published text also conquered his first literary prize. All their 21 published books were awarded, some internationally.

The passion for the word is declared in their technical and poetic texts. He is able to spend days seeking for the appropriate word in the company of the countless dictionaries that he possesses as the one of psychoanalysis, of numerology, of freemasonry, of etymology, of music, of religion, of languages and many others.

For the poetic content of his text, the critic points Bartolomeu's work as one of the most important in the current literary production of Brazil for children and youngsters.


Main prizes:
Selo de Ouro, from the National Foundation of the Infantile and Juvenile Book
Prêmio Bienal Internacional de São Paulo
Prêmio Prefeitura deBelo Horizonte- the best for youngsters
Prêmio Jabuti from the Brazilian Camera of the Book
Grande Prêmio of APCA - Association of the Critics of Art from São Paulo
Prêmio Orígenes Lessa, National Foundation of the Infantile and Juvenile Book
Diploma de Honra from IBBY, London
Octagonal Quatrième, France
Rosa Branca from Cuba
Biennial of Belo Horizonte.

Translations
Canada
Sweden
Norway
Denmark
Mexico

Cast
Ana Alice Souza: Dona Lipa and Ximenes
Beth Carvalho: Mário
Carolina Damasceno: Beautiful woman and Amália
Fátima Jorge: Zé of the Bell
Felipe Saleme: Tibúrcio and Bartolo
João Melo: Priest Libério and Júlio
Read Loschi: Mr. Aristides and Norman
Loló Mendes: Rosalina and Esperança
Lourdes Araújo: Dona Cotinha and Olga
Soraia Moraes: Corina and Natasha

Musicians: Pablo Bertola and Leandro Aguiar

Technique file
Text: Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós
Adaptation: Ponto de Partida
Program and direction: Regina Bertola
Costumes: Tânia Werneck
Making of Costumes: Vera Viol
Illumination: Jorginho deCarvalho
Illumination assistant and operator: Rony Rodrigues
Light assembly: Ronaldo Pereira
Vocal arrangements: Gilvan de Oliveira
Musical research: Ponto de Partida e Via Negromonte
Original music: Gilvan de Oliveira on Bartolomeu Campos Queirós text, “Mário”
Vocal preparation: Babaya
Dance and castanets: Karine Cobucci
Sonorização: Murillo Corrêa and Co.
Popularization programming: Felipe Saleme
Graphic project of the program: Gutt Chartone
Graphic production: Felipe Saleme
Popularization: Ponto de Partida
Production team: Fátima Jorge, Felipe Saleme, Loló Mendes, Pablo Bertola and Regina Bertola
Executive production: Fátima Jorge
Production direction: Fred Furtado
General production: Ponto de Partida

TRAVESSIA (Crossing)

TRAVESSIA (Crossing)



The Real is neither in the exit nor in the arrival, he is disposed to us
in the middle of the crossing.
Guimarães Rosa

“Un spaces féerique où scans public et scan artistes célébrent scans vie.”

This was how Travessia was announced in Paris, where it was first presented in 1996, in the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of Unesco and it was applauded by an audience of more than 1200 people.

Travessia is not just a show and neither theater. It is a tasty mixture that takes the public for a trip. It tells the history of the work, the fight and the party of the Brazilian people and it travels through the Brazilian music, in great company, like Villa Lobos, Tom Jobim, Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso, Elomar, Gonzaguinha...

Travessia is staged music, the sound formalized into images.

Sometimes the music is the dramatic text, sometimes just the rhythm is the driver and sometimes the scene still determines the music. In all those forms, almost always, the result is surprising.

In Travessia, o Ponto de Partida continues its language research in that the actor is the center of the staging. He sings, dances, interprets, lends his body to draw the lines of the show.

The stage is bare and the scene elements are as much signs for the reading of the show, as percussion instruments.

Travessia has an essentially international career, with seasons in Africa, in Latin America and in Europe.

It is a show that has the way and the smell of Brazil. That puts rhythm in our happiness, plays with our rhythms. That draws with our blackness and our latinity.

Our intention is to sing our roots and our dreams, our particularities and our contact points with every man.

Finally Travessia wants to be a ritual, a party.
A magic space where the public and the cast celebrate life!


Cast
Ana Alice Souza
Carolina Damasceno
Eloísa Mendes
Felipe Saleme
João Mello
Lido Loschi
Lourdes Araújo
Pablo Bertola
Regina Bertola
Soraia Moraes

Musicians
Gilvan de Oliveira - guitar
Ivan Corrêa – contra bass
Serginho Silva - percussion

Technich file
Conception and direction. Regina Bertola
Musical direction and arrangements. Gilvan de Oliveira
Vocal preparation. Babaya
Costumes. Tânia Werneck
Illumination. Jorginho de Carvalho
Technician and light operator. Rony Rodrigues
Production. Ponto de Partida
Production and graphic creation. Felipe Saleme
Executive production. Fátima Jorge
Executive secretary. Fernanda Fróes
Production direction. Fred Furtado

Program
Noite dos Mascarados Chico Buarque
Text Regina Bertola
Asa Branca Luís Gonzaga and Humberto Teixeira
Cio da Terra Milton Nascimento and Chico Buarque
Arrumação Elomar
Bola de Meia, Bola de Gude Milton Nascimento and Fernando Brant
Fé Cega, Faca Amolada Milton Nascimento and Ronaldo Bastos
Maracangalha Dorival Caymmi
Trenzinho do Caipira Villa Lobos
Maria, Maria Milton Nascimento and Fernando Brant
Text Adélia Prado
Argonautas Caetano Veloso
Tanto Mar Chico Buarque
Arrastão Edu Lobo and Vinícius de Moraes
Garota de Ipanema Vinícius de Moraes
Desafinado Tom Jobim and Newton Mendonça
Cantiga de Caicó (folkloric theme)
Meu Amor Chico Buarque
Cajuína Caetano Veloso
Águas de Março Tom Jobim
Disparada (vignette) Geraldo Vandré and Théo de Barros
Procissão Gilberto Gil
Galope Gonzaguinha
Baião Luis Gonzaga and Humberto Teixeira
Text Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Ponto de Partida's Release

The memory of our life is kept in
several passages, each one with its sign and feeling.
To narrate straight and tacked, only when the things are of shallow importance.
Guimarães Rosa – Brazilian writer


“I had wonderments when I heard Roda que Rola. From this sample I can evaluate the talent of the group. I’m sure that Ponto de Partida has a universal worth .I hope you come true all dreams you may dream. A strong hug from the friend and admirer.
Manoel de Barros – Brazilian poet

“With a great and immense respect, a memory of these magic days in what refers to the existence of such special group of the Brazilian theater”
(At the end of the workshop in Barbacena, April, 2000)
Fernanda Montenegro – Brazilian actress


“I have been following the last twelve years of the exceptional work of Ponto de Partida, from Barbacena, and I had the chance of feeling, from very close, the creative capacity, the freedom of speech of its shows, its never stopped survey on a “mineira” culture, the real. The one that only people like those actors, poets and musicians know that exist.
Sérgio Brito – Brazilian actor


“I beg you, dear Regina, to transmit to your fellows from Ponto de Partida my tender embrace and my deep admiration.
Jorge Amado – Brazilian writer


“Thanks for the most grateful surprise of knowing, after your heart, your talent. God bless you.”
Adélia Prado – Brazilian poet


“To Ponto de Partida, that knows how to read moonlight in Raul. With my thanks and my caress for ever.
Bartolomeu C. Queirós – Brazilian writer


“I’ve already traveled everywhere through this world. I’ve played and sung with too many children, adults, orchestras, but something like this was the first time. A godly gift that Oxalá should have given me. And I want to say that, even the “mineiro” who don’t know the things from Minas, should look inside , since it’s something very serious.”
Milton Nascimento – Brazilian



singer
The Ponto de Partida is a group of theater from Minas Gerais that, when it appeared, 27 years ago, it decided that it would not emigrate from Barbacena, it´s town, but it would not accept the limits of the province either. It would open bites to break the country, it would revisit the memory to aspirate address in the universe, it would investigate a language to put the Brazilian man in the center of the stage, in the main role.

On these twenty-seven years the Ponto de Partida became an itinerant and independent company of repertoire, with 19 professionals in permanent exercise, with 28 mounted shows, 4 CDs, a DVD and it coined a mark. It systematized processes and creation, methods and production, it conquered partnerships, it built a repertoire of Brazilian most solid dramaturgy, it inaugurated a song learned in the womb of Minas Geraes and it broke strong of the bowels of Minas Geraes resounding for Brazil and the great distances of Africa, Europe and South America.

In their adventures for the exterior it marks it’s passage through France, when it came in the headquarters of Unesco, in 1995, representing Brazil in the commemorations of 50th anniversary of UN and in 2005, when it launched the DVD Ser Minas Tão Gerais, in partnership with Milton Nascimento and the Boys from Araçuaí, in Paris.

The Ponto de Partida works with referential characters of the Brazilian and Latin-American culture and with anonymous boys, policemen, workers. It presented in the most sophisticated theaters, of Champs-Élysées, in Paris or the Municipal of Rio de Janeiro to improvised spaces, in factories, in schools, in squares, in ruins of castles, in historical constructions. It conquered national and international prizes, as the Medal of the Cultural Merit, of the Presidency of the Republic, the Medal of Inconfidência, from the government of Minas Geraes and its public's respect with whom it established fertile and passionate bows.

Now the Ponto de Partida is the direct responsible for the formation or the work of 211 people. The 19 professionals of the group, that are at the same time actors, singers, producers, mobilizers, technicians, musicians, teachers, directors, 9 musicians that work as masters in Bituca – University of Popular Music and in the Casa de Arte&Ofício and they act in the musical shows of the group, 120 apprentices of Bituca - University of Popular Music, 40 children of the choir of the Boys from Araçuaí and 8 professionals that work permanently in its technical team.

It seems, sometimes, that the Ponto de Partida is not a theater group, but a cultural foundation that has to maintain its performance in the level of the excellence, so that all those projects are efficient, fertile and pleasurable. However the indescribable work that all this forces us to do didn't steal us the passion, the humility of respecting the mysteries, the patience of maturing desires to the dew, the courage of exploring the country, the happiness for great fights, the pleasure of inventing histories, the habit of crooking the direction of the things and the certainty that when the dream and the work are joined, even the miracle is possible.



Projects
Bituca - University of Popular Music
A free tuition school with vocational character, that uses a process of integral formation, working with common repertoire, as in the erudite schools, turned to the Brazilian music. It teaches 9 instruments, song besides musicality for the method Kodaly, musical perception, rhythmic perception, harmony, improvisation and creation, group practice, preparation for the stage, production, ethics, mobilization, leadership and formation of groups, common practice to all students.

Bituca - University of Popular Music is settled in an of the buildings of “Sericícola”, first factory of silk cloth of Brazil, whose history mixes with the Italian immigration in Minas Geraes, 1888, with the industrial development of the beginning of the century, with the feminine work in Brazil, and that was restored with the partnership of the Friend’s Club of Ponto de Partida and of the Gerdau-Açominas.

Casa de Arte&Ofício Ponto de Partida
Course of integral formation for actors, that it uses the systematized methodology by the group Ponto de Partida.

Boys from Araçuaí
Choir from the project “Ser Criança” (To Be a Child), of the Popular Center of Culture and Development with which the group works for seven years. They recorded the CD Roda que Rola (The Wheel that Rolls) and they set up the shows Roda que Rola, and Santa Ceia (Holy Supper) Ser Minas Tão Gerais, with Milton Nascimento's participation. This show was registered in DVD.

If when the Ponto de Partida began the work with the Boys from Araçuaí they were a promise and their investment a hope, today it is the concrete proof that to mix in the same boiler wings and roots, work and desires, not only recovers remote inheritances, but the dignity that the wisdom and the power to create restore in the man.

House of Boys’Dwelling
Six adolescents that are part of the choir of the Boys from Araçuaí and that are already more determined to follow an artistic career or present talent for an art that has to be exercised from very early, moved to Barbacena, where they continue their regular studies and they make their professional formation. Chicken of Chicks: a mother was hired to take care of the house and the boys.

Formation and change of experiences
It is characteristic of the Ponto de Partida to exercise in a formation process and permanent improvement.

Formation: Fernanda Montenegro, Sérgio Britto, Natália Timberg, Cacá Carvalho, Álvaro Apocalypse, Ulisses Cruz, Bia Lessa, Fernando Peixoto, Fernando Limoeiro, Giramundo, Pedro Paulo Cava, Maria Azambuja, Eládio Perez González, Marcos Leite, Aurélio di Simone, Jorginho de Carvalho, Reiner Vianna, Rui Moreira, Bete Arenque, Wagner Moreira, Paulo Santos, Serginho Silva, Babaya and Gilvan de Oliveira, that are all great Brazilian artists.

Participation in shows: the singer, Milton Nascimento and the actor, Nelson Xavier.

Continuous participation with the group: Gilvan of Oliveira (acoustic guittar player) Babaya (vocal teacher), Jorginho de Carvalho (light designer), Tânia Werneck, Alexandre Rousset and Tereza Bruzzi (costumer designers).

Business Companies & Ponto de Partida
The companies, ONG's and foundations search, in the process of the scenic and creative work of the group, elements to touch, motivate, make aware, form their employees or the community involved in its production process and improvement.

Some partners in the last 5 years: Ministry of the Culture, General office of the Human rights of the Ministry of the Justice, Secretary of State of the Culture of Minas Gerais, Military police of Minas Gerais, IPHAN, SESC, SENAC, FIEMG, BNDES, SINEP, ABERGE, CDL.
Companies: Gerdau-Açominas, Usiminas, Vale do Rio Doce, Belgo, Cemig, Cedar, Fábrica São José, Móveis Itatiaia, Rede Pitágoras.
Foundations: Ayrton Senna, Abrinq, Acesita, Instituto Cellular Telemig, Odebrecht, Social Itaú.

Permanent partnership: Popular Center of Culture and Development (CPCD) and Bank of Êxitos S.A.
Patronage: now the Ponto de Partida is sponsored by Cellular Telemig and Gerdau-Açominas.

Project of Cultural Mobilization
CAPP - Club of the Friends of the Ponto de Partida
“This is the rule: or the blessed lord governs the country or the damned country governs the people.”
João Guimarães Rosa – Brazilian writer

When the Ponto de Partida decided to try alternative roads to cut the “backlands” the challenges were so frightening that only taking our convictions to the last consequences, we would get to move forward. We went to the fight! If there were not great sponsors we would conquer dozens of small ones, if they were insufficient, we would summon the citizens, if the public had given up the shows, we would sell tickets from door to door, hand in hand, we would visit each classroom of all schools, we would roam the streets singing and announcing: it is pressing to abandon the comfortable twilight of the audience to conquer, on the stage and in the history, a speech and a role.

The guy from Minas Gerais is a stubborn one, who likes to have under control the reins of its horse, he wouldn’t escape from that fight, he entered with all weapons in the fight! CAPP was invented - Club of the Friends of the Ponto de Partida, hundreds of people contribute annually to the activities of the group, becoming partners in the creation and support of one of the most potent movements of Minas Gerais. Today not only them, but thousands of dispersed people all over Brazil and each one, to its way, accomplishes the task of marking, with its trace, the directions of the History.

CD'S and DVD's:
Estação XV(Station XV), winner of the Prize Sharp, in 1996
Roda que Rola (The Wheel that Rolls), with the participation of the Boys from Araçuaí
Pietá, participation in Milton Nascimento's record.
Ser Minas Tão Gerais: DVD of the show, with the Boys from Araçuaí and Milton Nascimento.
O Menino e o Poeta (The Boy and the Poet), with Pablo Bertola and band.
Pra Nhá Terra (To Mother Earth), with the Boys from Araçuaí and Milton Nascimento.

Shows
Arca de Noé (The Noah's Ark) - 1980
Music by Vinícius of Moraes
Text and direction: Regina Bertola

Um, dois ,três, agora é nossa vez (One,two, three, now is our turn) - 1982
Text: Regina Bertola
Direction: Fernando Limoeiro

Contrastes - a poética de Chico Buarque (Contrasts - the poetic of Chico Buarque) -1982
Music by Chico Buarque
Text: Ivanée and Regina Bertola
Direction: Regina Bertola

Saltimbancos (Acrobats)- 1984
Version and adaptation: Chico Buarque
Direction: Regina Bertola

Se essa rua fosse minha (If that street were mine) - 1986
Research: Ponto de Partida
Text: Regina Bertola
Direction: Bia Lessa and Regina Bertola

O que é, o que é? -1987
Conception: Ponto de Partida

Estripulias de anjo (Angel's mischiefs) - 1987
Text and direction: Regina Bertola

Drummond - 1987
Program and direction: Regina Bertola

Travessia (Crossing) - 1987
Conception and direction: Regina Bertola

Cantaramar - 1987
Adaptation and direction: Regina Bertola

A Vaquinha Lelé (Lelé Little Cow) - 1989
Text: Ronaldo Ciambroni
Direction: Regina Bertola

O Beco – A Ópera do Lixo (The Alley - the Opera of the Garbage) - 1990
Text and direction: Regina Bertola
Os Gnomos contam a história do Gato Malhado e da Andorinha Sinhá (The Gnomes tell the history of the Spotted Cat and the Swallow Sinhá) - 1992
Text: Jorge Amado
Conception: Ponto de Partida
Direction: Regina Bertola

Nossa Cidade (Our city) - 1992
Adaptation: Regina Bertola
Direction: Sérgio Britto

Grande Sertão Veredas- 1994
Text: João Guimarães Rosa
Adaptation and direction: Regina Bertola

Ciganos (The Gypsies) - 1995
Text: Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós
Direction: Regina Bertola

Viva o Povo Brasileiro (Hurrah the Brazilian people) - 1996
Text: Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós and Ponto de Partida

Loucas histórias (Crazy stories) - 1997
Text: Manoel Gil
Direction: Maria Azambuja

Casos&canções (Tales & songs) - 1997
Program: Ponto de Partida
Direction: Regina Bertola

A Roca- histórias de mulheres (The Distaff- women's stories 0- 1998
Text: Adélia Prado
Direction and adaptation: Regina Bertola

Roda que Rola (The Wheel that Rolls) - 1998
Direction: Regina Bertola
Program: Ponto de Partida

O Fuso- histórias de homens (The Spool - men's stories) - 1999
Text: João Guimarães Rosa
Direction: Regina Bertola

O Tear – histórias de amor (The Loom - love stories) - 2000
Text: Manoel of Barros
Music: Chico Buarque
Dramaturgy and direction: Regina Bertola
Actor’s preparation: Sérgio Britto

Ser Minas Tão Gerais - 2002
Conception: Ponto de Partida
Music: Milton Nascimento
Text: Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Direction: Regina Bertola
O Menino e o Poeta (The Boy and the Poet )- 2005
Conception and direction: Regina Bertola

Pra Nhá Terra (To Mother Earth) – 2007
Conception: Ponto de Partida
Music: Pablo Bertola, Lido Loschi, Júlia Medeiros e Leandro Aguiar
Text: Manoel de Barros and Ponto de Partida
Direction: Regina Bertola

Pra Nhá Terra em Ipatinga

Gente,um sucesso!!!!!!!!

Mais de 700 pessoas assistiram ao espetáculo Pra Nhá Terra em Ipatinga, no sábado ,dia 5.
O público aplaudiu por mais de 5 minutos.
O Ponto de Partida ficou muito emocionado em retornar ao Vale do Aço.