Region Center launches grant of 27 thousand euros for children's shows

Otoday, organizations from the Centro region have made available a grant worth €27,000 to create a spectacle for a target audience between the ages of 4 and 14 or families.

“Crescent Room is a creation grant in performing arts for childhood for an established and regular practice in the daily lives of children in cultural life and the right to an artistic experience”, defended the head of the educational service Alcateia, from the Lapa do Lobo Foundation.

Dennis Xavier, author of the project, also said that this artistic experience in childhood “should meet their level of cognitive development, their sensitivity, the particularity of how the child sees and understands the world and who knows how to accept the questions” they ask.

The responsible spoke today in the presentation of the first edition of the Fourth Crescent grant, at the Lapa do Lobo Foundation, in Nelas, Viseu district, before the eight entities that finance it, as well as the very foundation – Cultural and Recreational Association of Tondela (ACERT), Cultural Center of Loadal do Sal, both in the district of Viseu, Teatra (Coimbra), Teatro Aveirense (Aveiro), Teatro-Cine de Gouveia (district of the Guard) and Teatro Miguel Franco (Leiria).

The applications for this first edition, which will be annual, take place between Friday and December 31 to which can compete creators or communities based in the districts of Viseu, Guarda, Aveiro, Coimbra and Leiria, added Dennis Xavier.

The grant, worth 27 thousand euros, is intended for emerging creators, who are older and up to 35 years old, and who have up to four signed artistic creations.

The show to be created will have as recipients children between 4 and 14 years old or families and will have to comply with the schedule of the scholarship, available on the internet (fourth increase. fundacaolapadolobo.pt).

The regulation, also available online, indicates the dates to be met, as well as the artistic residences and the tour of seven shows in the respective cultural equipment of the Central region.

“ We also made a commitment to follow the winning project,” said Dennis Xavier, advancing that the jury will be made up of an element of each partner.

The project aims to “put children in touch with the arts should be a priority of any cultural project”.

An idea corroborated by everyone and that for the head of the programme of the Aveirense Theatre, Leonor Barata, “not only because contemporary creation is being stimulated” but also happens “in an area as delicate as theater or art for childhood and until recently it was even mistreated”.

“ Fortunately, the picture is changing a lot. It is a work that is very close to education and also to the formation of a consciousness for the development of critical, reflective thinking, for the development of an aesthetic sensitivity that is very important and, above all, the development of an ability to relate information and go beyond the world”, he added.

Leonor Barata also considered that this grant is “an investment that will not be exhausted in a single show, as with many creations”, but “helps create a basis for applying for other funded projects that require work” carried out.

The others also praised the scholarship as it is “a network project that has not been imposed on anyone” and “everyone is in it because they understand that they must be and by an existing affinity” among the actors, Rui Eufrasio of Gouveia said.

This scholarship “can drive creators who can then make a bigger path”, that is, they can leave the Center region, José Pires, from Leiria, noted that the city has a platform for artistic creation of a municipal company that can support the winning project.

The vice president of the House of Loadal do Sal, Isabel Azevedo, also assumed the words as his own because, in her Municipality, “extra curricular activities (AEC) contemplate the arts”.

“ And this project brings and will bring much to our territories ", defended Isabel Azevedo.