The project is called "Peaceful Places" and comes to the Aveiro district and Porto Metropolitan Area event through the Italian choreographer, videographer and anthropologist Margherita Landi, who will lead a total of six 20-minute sessions for this purpose in the cloisters of the Museu Convento dos Loios, between 7:45 pm and 9:45 pm on Friday and Saturday, always with prior registration via the festival's 'site'.

"The idea came to us during the covid-19 pandemic, when we reflected a lot on how technology was becoming an important part of intimate relationships and the lack of touch was affecting our bodies," Margherita Landi told Lusa.

The first presentation of the concept was in May 2022 at the Festival dell'Italia Gentile, in Florence, and at that time it combined virtual hugs with real hugs, because the war in Ukraine had intensified two months earlier and, in partnership with the anti-nuclear organization Senza Atomica, Margherita's company, Landi Lanza, wanted to focus on a message of peace.

In its final format, and after presentations in Bulgaria and the United States that used only video, Portugal is the first country where "Peaceful Places" is presented with virtual reality glasses and hugs that, for the participants, will be people from an imagined world.

"In the pandemic, the fear of other bodies was felt as if they were lethal weapons and, as we became concerned about the habit of avoiding each other, we thought about building a safe space where we could practice proximity," recalled Margherita Landi. "In contrast to this idea of bodies as weapons, we proposed bodies as peaceful spaces and that is why, in this performance, the peaceful places are between our arms".

The experience will explore the mechanics of the hug itself, in its physical and psychological dynamics. By better understanding one's role in this gesture and what it implies in terms of weight management, breathing and rhythm, the person hugging "becomes aware of the support they can offer and receive, and of the respect that is necessary -- with oneself and with others -- to achieve this proximity".

What the Italian artist and anthropologist wants to highlight with the use of virtual reality is that "technology can be a good tool to generate emotions and questions, but it will never replace a real hug". The performance at Imaginarius thus constitutes "an experience of proximity, but also an experience of absence, because the touch is only imagined".

Margherita Landi says that the result is "deeply poetic", because it involves "an attentive and emotional humanity in the middle of the street, in a context of everyday life", allowing the political message to oscillate between performative virtuosity and feeling, inclusion.

"In this work, anyone can generously offer the beauty of their gesture," says the artist. "We often witness how participants are overcome with emotion and this always touches us deeply, since, most of the time, people feel the need for a real hug at the end of the experience and that is precisely the response we wanted to evoke".

The 23rd edition of Imaginarius -- Santa Maria da Feira International Street Theater Festival will present 41 shows between this Thursday and Sunday, thanks to a half-million-euro budget invested in evoking Freedom.

With 15 stages distributed in conventional halls, squares, gardens and other public spaces in the city, the event will host 41 companies of 12 nationalities, representing 190 artists, in a total of 144 exhibitions and 130 hours of content.

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