Mónica Calle’s theatrical work has already extended over three decades and includes the staging of performances that are considered historical in the Portuguese context. One of these works was Rehearsal for a Cartography, premièred at the TNDM II, in which the spoken word disappears to give way to the maximum expression of the bodies and their resistance. The Dark that Lights You or The Last Seven Words of Christ continues that work, bringing the concepts of resistance and endurance, which were at the centre of that earlier piece, into the public space.

Based on an autobiographical exercise, each participant registers their place in the performance, through their own individual emotional experience. The result is a joint performative movement, choreographed as a unit and not seeking any established narrative.

The common premise is that of resistance – physical and emotional, of the group as a whole and of the individual – in a show that has no defined duration. It is “a performance that will depend on the limits of the performers themselves, in response to their efforts, repetitions or climatic conditions, until their exhaustion reveals the meaning of the show, both to themselves and to the audience.