This Saturday afternoon was the last performance at the Teatro da Cornucópia. The founder and director, Luís Miguel Cintra, announced this week that the support he received from the State was not sufficient and, therefore, no longer had the financial conditions to support the space and the company and that would shut down from time to time. And so it was. At this time there is no sessions marked and the doors are closed. But is it even time?
During the afternoon, one hour before the start of the recital that marked the goodbye to the Cornucopia, Luís Miguel Cintra, the co-director Cristina Reis, have received an unexpected visit: the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who once again changed her schedule to go to the theatre, situated in Bairro Alto, in Lisbon. His presence was enough for the minister of Culture, Luís Castro Mendes, also change your schedule and, instead of going to White Castle, as expected, was also up to the Cornucopia where the four talked about the shutdown.
Marcelo served, therefore, of a mediator between the minister and the responsible of the company, giving suggestions and encouraging that to keep the conversations to prevent the end of this theatre. The conversation was not conclusive, at least for now, but may have brought a hope moderate.
“The company announced that it wanted to shut down. From the moment you decide to survive, let’s talk”, stated Luís Filipe Castro Mendes to the journalists, with the President of the Republic on their side, noting that the talks “are ongoing for a long time, and are ongoing and have never been stopped”.
Besides, until you pointed out that “there is an appropriation for 2017 that is equal to the allocation they have had in 2016″, and that the income of the theatre “is also guaranteed until the end of 2017".
But Luís Miguel Cintra remains cautious.
“Hopefully, this time want to say something different, because there is always, in the conversations that we have with the authorities for a long time, whether that party is, in the background, a ‘Big Brother’, a person who does not have the name and the boss in everything, a person or an entity, and that is money. And the answer is always: I wanted to do, but no money. No one said thus: do not, do not want to do because you do not pay for anything. Let’s go see if there is no such entity what is this ‘Big Brother'," he told the journalists after the conversation with the President and with the Minister.
And he noted: "we’re Not doing pressure or we are to make a move to be able to increase the grant. It has nothing to do with it. It has to do with a concrete situation and real: with the money that we receive, for three years now, it is not possible for this house to work". And hence have maintained the decision to close this Saturday.
that is, to the founder and director of the theatre, the decision to reopen does not depend on him, but of the State. “I don’t know, they are the ones who decide. I can’t know what it is that is going to change. I’m not the one that I have to go back. Who has to go back or not are the decisions of State support," he said.
One of the suggestions of Marcelo to save the theatre company was to create a status exception, which would allow the company to continue its activity without competing to the financial support of the Directorate-General of the Arts.
But the minister of Culture did not want to talk about “excellence in legal terms”, arguing that it “can lend themselves to interpretations as to the constitutionality”, but said he has “always been the talk on the basis of the special situation, that is a situation, in fact, of the Cornucopia".
And he added: "there is No exceptionality. There are decisions that they take, compared to the budgetary framework that has, and needs. Of course, the Cornucopia has an institutional weight, a weight of cultural, a story, a memory, extraordinary, exceptional,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment