The Lagoa City Council will promote an introductory theater course at the Cineteatro Lagoense Francisco d’Amaral Almeida between February 19 and March 19, led by Eleonora Marino Duarte.
This initiative is promoted by the Lagoa City Council’s Education and Culture Department to broaden the range of leisure activities in Lagoa, in this case, in the cultural area, for young people and adults.
The course, divided into 10 lessons, is aimed at people over the age of 13 and will last 20 hours, taking place on Mondays and Tuesdays between 20:00 and 22:00. Those interested should register by February 15th by emailing educacaoecultura@lagoa-acores.pt. The course will cost 60 euros, payable at the first class.
The trainer, Eleonora Marino Duarte, is an actress, director, and poet. Born in 1969 in Brazil, at the age of 12, she joined the GATIG Theater Company – Grupo de Artes e Teatro da Ilha do Governador, working for 30 years as an actress and director in that company. Since 2009, she has lived in Ponta Delgada, where she created and maintains the artistic intervention group “O Colectivo”. She performs monthly with her poetry project “Entreactos entre Versos” at the Lavajazz Bar. She teaches drama classes for the INATEL Foundation at the Teatro Micaelense and works in the socio-educational service of the Public Library and Regional Archive of Ponta Delgada.
The days of the classes will be February 19, 20, 26 and 27 and March 4, 5, 11, 12, 18 and 19. After the presentation in the first class, there will be a theoretical class, where the students will learn the notion of space on stage and carry out various exercises in diction and awareness of emotional memory and will be given a text to memorize.
In the third class, the instructor will also teach improvisation exercises based on musical stimuli.
The fourth lesson will be dedicated to exercises to raise awareness of teamwork and improvisation based on a story created in pairs. The next class will be for improvisation with more than one actor.
In the sixth class, the students will recreate a scene in groups. The text that was asked to be memorized in the second lesson will be presented in the seventh lesson. The following lessons will include theatrical exercises and dynamics for the memorized text, warm-ups, and the construction of the text in a theatrical context.
The last class will be for the student’s final assessment.

In Diário dos Açores–Osvaldo Cabral, director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance)  at California State University, Fresno–PBBI thanks the sponsorship of the Luso-American Development Foundation from Lisbon, Portugal (FLAD)