SYNCOPATIONS, by Cristina Roldão, XEXA and Zia Soares
Event Slider
Date
22 May – 30 Jun 2025
- Sat,
- Closed on Tuesday
Location
Sound Room Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian
‘SYNCOPATIONS’ is a sound installation inspired by black women who traversed Lisbon at the beginning of the 20th century.
The project was created collectively by researcher and sociologist Cristina Roldão, producer, sound designer, composer and singer XEXA, and theatre director and actress Zia Soares.
The work takes us through a wavering journey that crosses cities and geographies such as Lisbon, Santiago, Cachéu, Salvador, Harlem and São Tomé, in which the narrative proposes a non-linear time that merges with the authors’ biographies and imagery.
It is from the propulsive sounds of advance and retreat, and from noise, music and words, that the voices of the protagonists erupt: the authors, the performers, Carolina X, Maria Teodora Doutora, Fernanda do Vale, Dam, Georgina Ribas, Josephine Baker.
‘SYNCOPATIONS’ is part of ‘Chorus in Rememory of Flight in Lisbon’, the programme associated with Julianknxx’s exhibition, curated by Jesualdo Lopes, Paulo Pascoal, Rafael de Oliveira and Selma Uamusse.
Read the transcription of the audios in EnglishTopics
I myself, I alone
Melik
K’aflikana
SYNCOPATIONS
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Carolina X
Listening base. Reflections on the women who inspired the installation
Surname ‘X,’ because no trace of lineage remains. Surname ‘X’ to erase the prefix ‘black,’ which always precedes the given name. We arrive at her – at them, in fact – the centenarians Carolina and Maria Teodora Doutora, through newspapers reporting their passing, in 1943 and 1920, respectively. Were they the ‘last’ enslaved women in Lisbon?
Who is she, standing barefoot in the middle of Avenida da Liberdade for photographer Charles Chusseau-Flavies, her chest draped in rosaries like a long string of amulets? Who are they, and so many others like them, cast aside by ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’ once they had grown old, deemed no longer useful, and abandoned on the streets of Lisbon? ‘X’ for unknown. ‘X’ for crossroads. ‘X’ for the marker that cannot be forgotten, despite the silence. ‘X’ for the incision, where rupture spills forth.
Interpretation: Isabél Zuaa
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I myself, I alone
Listening base. Reflections on the women who inspired the installation
She reached us shrouded in insults, through the skewed doorway that is the book ‘A Preta Fernanda: Recordações d’uma colonial’ (1912), which tells us far more about white Lisbon society at the end of the 19th century than about who Andresa do Nascimento de Pina (or Andresa de Pina do Nascimento? Also known as Fernanda do Vale) really was. Some claim it to be an autobiography. But no, it is not. Instead, it is a racist and misogynistic satire targeting a woman who defied categorisation. Surely Andresa, or Fernanda, must have attempted to publicly refute that monstrous portrait, and surely she was silenced. And again, once again, Carla Fernandes’ Spivakian question echoes: ‘Can the subaltern remember?’
The answer:
Yes, she can.
Interpretation: Zia Soares
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Melik
Listening base. Reflections on the women who inspired the installation
She did not come so far for this: for that endless queue of people, for that land, which was far from being the pinnacle of progress and sophistication. In Porto, as at IndieLisboa 2023, the white gaze – through white eyes and the white camera – zooms in on her bare breasts and nicknames her ‘Rosinha’.
Among the Balanta, a guest would never be subjected to such impertinent, sick, and barbaric curiosity. They would never be exposed, never touched, and their name would never be forgotten. It would be nothing short of a miracle if that people had a ‘civilising influence’ on any other – as we know someone once claimed.
Interpretation: Binete Undonque
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K’aflikana
Listening base. Reflections on the women who inspired the installation
We do not know whether the women of Ké-Aflikana (1929) – Georgina Ribas, Maria Nazareth Ascenso, and Maria d’Alva Teixeira – beyond their prim classical music soirées, enjoyed dancing the Charleston or the Black rhythms that would later shape fado. Ever zealous in guarding ‘respectability,’ Black excellence would have them resemble middle-class white women as much as possible: submissive, nurturing, and hospitable. At most, benevolent, saviours, interpreters of their people. Make no mistake, these Black women are not servants, nor ‘natives’; they are proof that ‘we are capable.’
Really? Like, ‘on Friday, I go Black’?
Interpretation: G FEMA, Cristina Roldão
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SYNCOPATIONS
Listening base. Reflections on the women who inspired the installation
A polyphonic circle for an old conversation whose end is nowhere in sight. Time and again, history turns, and the ‘Black Renaissance’ is proclaimed. It is the Harlem Renaissance, the apotheosis of Josephine Baker, the Charleston invading Lisbon’s clubs, while at the same time the ‘heroes of the sea’ carry out their occupation campaigns in Africa.
The year is 2024, Creole Lisbon, the Afro prefix forcibly affixed to everything, everywhere. And Claúdia Simões – unjustly, shamelessly condemned.
A break with racism? Blackface of oneself, or a critical caricature of the caricature? Or perhaps: the creative source of Negritude bursting forth, abundant; and a legion of tokens, negrophiles, and gatekeepers of art and academia, keen to extract it, eager to appropriate it, salivating as they set their gleaming traps.
Participation: Binete Undonque, Cristina Roldão, Filipa Bossuet, G FEMA, Isabél Zuaa, Piny, Raquel Lima, Vânia Doutel Vaz, XEXA and Zia Soares
Biographies
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Cristina Roldão
Cristina Roldão is a sociologist, researcher at Iscte – University Institute of Lisboa and lecturer at the Escola Superior de Educação de Setúbal (ESE/IPS). She actively participates in academic and public discussions on racism and Blackness in Portugal and she is co-author of the recent book Tribuna Negra: Origins of the Black Movement in Portugal (1911-1933).
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XEXA
XEXA is an Afrofuturist artist of São Toméan descent born in Lisbon. Her work reflects the exploration of sounds, creating a hybrid of rhythms with synthesisers, sound design and voice. XEXA is a sound designer, producer, composer and singer who has performed at various festivals across Europe and composed music for the British Music Collection, CMMAS, Lagos Art Biennale, Culturgest and ModaLisboa. Her album ‘Vibrações de Prata’ was released by Príncipe Discos in 2023.
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Zia Soares
Zia Soares is a director and actress who works between Africa and Europe. In her practice, she experiments with the construction of new dramaturgies rooted in oral poetics, in which the verb is a manifestation of images. Her trajectory includes the shows ‘Pérola sem Rapariga’, co-produced by Sowing_arts/TNDM/apap FEMINIST FUTURES and ‘O Riso dos necrófagos’, written by her and co-produced by Teatro GRIOT/Culturgest, which was awarded the Internazionale Teresa Pomodoro Prize (Italy) for Best Play 2021/2022.
Credits
Authorship and Artistic direction
Cristina Roldão
XEXA
Zia Soares
Texts
Cristina Roldão
Zia Soares
Sound creation and design
XEXA
Research
From the book Tribuna Negra: Origens do Movimento Negro em Portugal, 1911-1933, by Cristina Roldão, José Pereira and Pedro Varela (Tinta-da-china, 2023)
Production support
HANGAR Artistic Research Center
Performers
Isabél Zuaa
Binete Undonque
Cristina Roldão
G FEMA
Zia Soares
Participação
Filipa Bossuet
Piny
Raquel Lima
Vânia Doutel Vaz
XEXA
Production
Catarina Ariztía
Technical direction
João Hora
Pedro Costa
Main image
© Denise Santos
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation reserves the right to collect and keep records of images, sounds and voice for the diffusion and preservation of the memory of its cultural and artistic activity. For further information, please contact us through the Information Request form.
