MARLENE MONTEIRO FREITAS

NÔT (which means night in Cabo Verdean Creole) is inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, an epic in which Scheherazade tells a story every evening to delay her own execution, a fascinating survival strategy for Marlene Monteiro Freitas, who converts this unfinished, suspended narrative into choreography. NÔT is a nocturnal composition where life and death, vice and virtue, dreams and reality change places with no respite. The piece does not offer any explanations.  Rather, it leaves the audience with the after-impressions of a world in crisis and an absurd but insistent hymn to freedom. 

Marlene Monteiro Freitas (Cabo Verde, 1979) studied dance at P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), at the ESD (Madrid) and at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon). She has worked with choreographers such as Loïc Touzé, Emmanuelle Huynh, Tânia Carvalho and Boris Charmatz. The common denominator of her shows is openness, hybridity, impurity and intensity. In 2015, in Lisbon, she co-founded P.OR.K, the company that has produced her work ever since. She has won various international awards, including the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale, the Chanel Next Prize and the Evens Arts Prize. She has co-curated the (un)common ground project since 2020, which focuses on the artistic and cultural expression of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Marlene Monteiro Freitas holds a 2025 Onassis AiR fellowship. 

Choreography Marlene Monteiro Freitas / Choreography assistance Francisco Rolo / With Ben Green, Henri “Cookie” Lesguillier, Joãozinho da Costa, Mariana Tembe, Marie Albert, Miguel Filipe, Rui Paixão, Tomás Moital / Set design Yannick Fouassier, MMF / Lights and technical direction Yannick Fouassier / Costumes MMF, Marisa Escaleira / Sound: Rui Antunes / Stage management Ana Luísa Novais / Special stage prop Cláudio Silva | Set design internship Emma Ait-Kaci / Artistic consultancy João Figueira, Martin Valdés-Stauber 
Production and diffusion P.OR.K / Managing director Rui Silveira – Something Great / Tour production manager Niki Fischer – Something Great / Administration and production management of the creation Janine Lages
Coproduction Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Festival d’Avignon, Berliner Festspiele, Kampnagel International Summer Festival, Culturgest, MC2 – Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, Le Quartz, La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand, Maison de la danse Lyon, La Villette, La Comédie de Genève & La Bâtie – Festival de Genève, Onassis STEGI, Teatro Municipal do Porto, PACT Zollverein / Residencies O Espaço do Tempo, Alkantara, OPART, E.P.E./ESTÚDIOS VICTOR CÓRDON, Onassis AiR, MC2 – Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, Kampnagel International Summer Festival
Institutional support Dançando com a Diferença /Acknowledgements Carlos Duarte, Atelier MC2 Grenoble. The dramaturgical research of NÔT was supported by Onassis AiR in 2025