Are clohtes from Portuguese designers I choose to remember some of the trends this spring-summer.

As has become usual every year it was already announced the colors and trends for the season to come. This spring-summer promises to be a veritable avalanche of shades and unforgettable dreams.

One of my favorite trends are daytime sparkles appearing in wonderful pieces of Alves/ Gonçalves colection under the theme "celebrate" 20 years of Portugal Fashion in the catwalk we saw silver, gold and coppery that marked indelibly fluttering pieces left foresee a fluid silhouette that exudes freedom of movement, definitely ultra-feminine.

Mean by Ricardo Pietro, the sea, the fishermen, the villages of the Portuguese coastline, are the starting port in this collection. A mix of mermaid warrior urban and all the delicacy of the female body. Silhouette of geometric and closed lines, adhesive to the body, which contradict with fluid and loose lines, like the waves of the sea enovelam in the sand. Organic substances with ozone washes, mesh lycra embroidered with pearly sequins that ementam the radiant scales of our fish and cotton networks that celebrate traditional fishing. The color palette is inspired by the marine life through its blue, green, yellow with black accents.

The Storytailors returned inspire by Portuguese traditional stories and designed a collection called "Unbreakable", in which the outlines are marked by elements of air and water, by the porcelain and tile and the marriage of art and science. Their ethereal and diaphanous princesses continue to mark the season whith the blue and white colors were present in many of the pieces in this unbreakable collection. Silks and bodices, their branding, continue to delight the fans who appreciate the "porcelain dolls", stories of delight of this girly women by Storytailors.

It is a collection of small books compiled by the Foundation Franciso Manuel dos Santos about Portugal.

Above all each of the six volumes in this compilation are different approaches to the country described by news professional. Each book crosses a thematic on the contemporary Portugal, are a kind of news story, but also reflect the personal views of each author. The themes deal with health, agriculture, architectural ruins even a trip on foot through the deep country. Are accessible readings that allow us to have a 360 degree view of a country that after fighting various ailments, desertification of the interior motivated by emigration, abandonment of built and classified work over the centuries, social and economic changes in Portugal after joining the European Union, the limitations and triumphs of our health care system and finally to know who are after all these Portuguese? What I did notice? There are no tight scenarios, it is noted that there is a society that evolved, that is in constant movement, if the change is for better or worse depends on the personal opinion. I do not think are disenchanted portraits, on the contrary, are above all poignant accounts of each of our interlocutors, given by what they see, feel and ultimately reflect on the confrontation between the pure and harsh reality and the ideal of a nation. I could address the volumes that I liked, but I decided not to do so, because it may influence your potencial reading. All I ask is that you read.

Rui Lopes Graça was a dancer and currently choreographer for the National Ballet Company (BNC), as coordinator of special projects and for the Ballet Gulbenkian, the Portuguese Contemporary Dance Company, Ballet du Rhin in France, the National Company Song and Dance of Mozambique, the Contemporary Dance Company of Angola and also the Company Rui Lopes Graça. In addition to its activity as a choreographer, is regularly invited to lecture at the Higher School of Dance and the University of Stavanger in Norway. More recently choreographed the show "Animal Farm" based on the novel by Miguel Torga, the group "Dancing with the difference."

As a choreographer note what has changed in these past 30 years in dance in Portugal? The Gulbenkian Ballet company was extinguished, the support for culture declined over the years and some even say that there is an audience for classic ballet.
Rui Lopes Graça: There was incredible changes in 30 years. Dance had not the projection that has nowadays in society. There was even a certain type of dance that was known at the time through the Gulbenkian Ballet company and that was just one facet of representing the movement of dance worldwide. With the Acarte events there was a whole generation that choreographers and dancers who began to emerge and to travel, to know other realities and transform the dance movement in our country. What happens today is that dancing is very well represented, both in terms of training, such as creation despite having very few dance structures, which are not in large numbers. The level of training at the National Conservatory has dancers who have a working market both in Portugal and abroad. The idea that there is not good interpreters in Portugal is a thing of the past, what happens now is that the amount of people coming out of schools formed, in national terms, are not absorb by the market because we have so many people. While in the dance proliferates other concepts and other aesthetic ...

Dou you speaks of contemporary dance?
RLG: I speak of contemporary dance in all its crosses and possible aspects, because the dance has changed very creatively today. This is reflected in Portugal, we are not a country as closed to the outside as it was twenty years, or even thirty years ago. The big problem we have, is not in terms of interpreters and creators, but the possibility of developing work. There are few structures, there is almost no companies other than the author, who is not the same thing as repertory companies, in which several choreographers can develop work with the dancers and that's our big dilemma. In relation to the public, I am of the opposite opinion, there is an audience for dance, if in a performance it does not exist, one should try to understand why people do not have a huge appetite for dance performances and in terms of classical ballet forget about it, just say "swan lake" and it is always a full house, at least in the CNB. It is more difficult for contemporary companies, because to see the classics there is a more rooted tradition than for more advanced choreography, then also it depends on the choreographers and companies.

You are speaking about an urban audience that this more sensitized than someone who live outside the centers of large cities.
RLG: But this is normal. If people are not sensitized to a particular type of events is necessary to do so. If I go to a place where there is a great appetite for dance shows, I have to create a different disclosure and incentive mechanism so that people go to the theater and maybe after seeing hardly they won't like, unless they are proposals so, so special, so closed in a certain kind of taste that can only be made in a particular circuit, but there is a mistake to take these proposals to such sites.

When approached missing structures in Portugal for dance you refer to the theaters?
RLG: No, I mean the companies, because we have many theaters. We is also have a shortage of programmers, though there are plenty in Portugal, I think many are very "followers”, there are few professionals who program in a certain way and the others follow the same line, as if to format a certain type of taste and have a lack of cultural agent who have their own taste, this is one aspect. The other is that there is a great lack of structures for the dance work, companies with choreographic centers where they can develop projects and financial support so that they can be developed, not just for some more familiar names and you can reach the largest number of people. Then we have the plight of interpreters in our country, namely the lack of the dancer's status in Portugal. The no recognition that it is a rapid wear profession, everyone agrees on that, but not on paper, is not recognized by law. All these count towards the recognition of the profession and its development.

In terms of the dancer's status what is necessary to recognize?
RLG: When a dancer finishes his career? How do they retired? And when do they finish their social contribution career? Notice, an air traffic controller does not retired at age 65 as well as the embroiderers in Madeira who is considered a wearing job, but not a dancer and he destroys his body. It is a high-risk profession, because they have to had operations, have pain in all muscles, bones often broken in bad stages and currently the retirement for a dancer is up to 55 years old, but is someone dancing until that age? No. People should have security, special insurance for this type of professions, the possibility of retiring at age 40, for example, and then have the opportunity to recycle their life. What we are doing is to retired the body. Society must recognition to these people, because thanks to them that these creative professions exist.

You mean legislatively?
RLG: There is a lot of work done, this is not established, I think it will be, but we are currently in a counter-cyclical because when we talk about retirement is intended that people do so later, not sooner.

When you said that we need to create center for choreographers, it is for this reason that the pros have to leave Portugal?
RLG: I'll work out when they invite me and this is the reality of a Creator in all areas. Even though there were many centers, or companies in Portugal invite me to choreograph, I would never stop accepting invitations from abroad, because it's important our work reach other sites and others. It is the idea of globalization of art, creativity is to get as far as possible. In fact in Portugal there are no companies to provide work and meet the public looking for dance performances, because there is much more than we can imagine, what is needed is to feed that, if we give little at a time and irregularly naturally people lose the habit of the consumption of this show.

So that the centers can happen in the future what is necessary to happen?
RLG: Someone needs to take the initiative. There are already sites which promote acceptance and development projects, but more is needed across the country, we need to support it. They are also necessary committees so that they can create shows and make them move around the country.

At a time when the state support are scarce do you think it still should be predominant even though is little or none? Many companies argue the state should not help the arts, moreover, that hurts it, because the supports when there are always for the same, though some argue otherwise and find that the arts always need public incentives.
RLG: The arts always need public support, because if it were not so would only performances by gain and some artistic proposals not always have public. The number of people does not attest to the validity of a project, it is not because you have a full house that the work is very good, so if is given money for research and development in other areas, such as science, where there is an investment to find something that will later be used by many in the arts is the same, there is an investment because it is the future, even if we do not know what will be the result. We have many creators whose work is exactly this, which is to open the way and when it does, does not fill theaters, because we are looking for something and people still do not recognize this route. Thus, these structures need support to develop their projects. A show is not valid just because it fills audiences, this is not true, what fills is the established and there is no need as much support as before. When the set is like this we need to change it, because if we don't we are stuck in time, there is no breakthrough. To say that the artistic creation does not need support is total ignorance, is not to think, is a prejudice, it is being manipulated by people who certainly are not having support, because they are the ones who say they always go to the same, if they have it will not complained. I'm not saying that the system of grant's is right, which may be wrong is the way it is distributed and that is debatable. It has to do with taste, because whoever chooses are people who like certain things and it is that, if they are the same or have influence over a long period of time end up always being the same, this has nothing to do with the supporting the arts, but rather with the criteria to support a company. In my opinion to avoid such situations it was necessary that these commissions were not always made by the same people, potential requires changing the decision-making bodies and this is a guarantee of a diverse support.

Let's address the draft dancing with the difference, what were the challenges you faced in this very particular company?
RLG: This is a very special company and it was my biggest challenge. This means that references to a choreographer has when it comes to work in this company, how they communicate with interpreters varies rather abruptly, in relation to working with dancers accustomed to a normal repertoire, ie where there are people which has dance training from an early age, because they have a totally different understanding of people with a difference, so to speak, ranging grasp. How do I get to my idea to these people and how it will be implemented? It is a very difficult job and requires a long period of learning. For me this was a beginning to address this kind of language, but I think that is something for life, it is something that takes a long time to develop a concept that allows creating shows with these people. It is extremely difficult due to a large difference in communication codes and this is a tremendous challenge.

The different codes of communication that you speaks off also may apply when going on a train in Nourega?
RLG: This has nothing to do with it, we are talking about people living with disabilities. It is different asking a person with trisomy 21 to make a waltz pass than the other that does not have it, the brain does not work the same way. Though, they has an annuity of life and its existence is like mine, only the apprehension of reality breaks this person. So that's within this feature how I can produce an artistic object? It is challenging.

What you took this experience as a choreographer for the future?
RLG: Is that things may reach the public in a totally opposite way of what I'm thinking off and I can do it anyway, that is, there are many channels and this kind of experience is very good for me because it makes me think how it comes to the audience and it's not through a single message, there are multiple forms and more simplified than those who I habitually use. In this show we came to the public in a much more distilled, less complicated way, has to be to the point, it cannot have many flourishes and at the bottom it creates a synthesis at the level of very great communication, using only the essentials. I as a person have a tendency to complicate, to add more, because there is concern that I'm not reaching enough and this is a mistake, through this experience that helps simplify increasingly put aside what is fitting and stick to the essentials.

It is difficult to translate a literary work for dance?
RLG: I never transport a literary work to the dance. I use a book to create another object. It has the same title, Bichos, but not the book, that already exists.

For those who read the book what they will see ?
RLG: Will recognize things are not even all the tales are just a few. A literary work is sufficient on its own, does not need anything else. I do not like the idea of doing the choreography at the expense of the literary work, this already exists, has no interest to play it. I from a book recreate something else reading, this work showed me and awaken in me a certain kind of realities that I will want to work through dance. My posture is always from an object to create another reality. I do not like figurative.

That's how you define as a choreographer?
RLG: I do not know how to define myself as a choreographer, I'm looking for years and when I know I cease to be. The process is a constant discovery. The concern is not knowing.

Salomé Lamas is a Portuguese filmmaker who explores the limits of the documentary, which she calls of parafiction, which covers a part of the real, from a creative point of view and where there is room for the imagination.

You wrote the documentary as a form of cinematic expression, why?
Salomé Lamas: Nowadays the question documentary / fiction is interesting in the academic level, there are films that are more permeable to both formats are called hybrid, which is not position or on one side, or another. Maybe the work I do in the non-fiction cinema, is not the most conventional type of work. Now there are films that focus on the real and it is from this and how we translate to the viewer that interests me.

I find it curious that you underline this point, because I think you do something different in terms of narrative and how you film plans, "terra de ninguém" 2013 is a good example, which seals the life of an individual, that's what you consider hybrid, because it is out of the ordinary even in the case of real cinema?
SL: No, sometimes it has to do with the inclusion of fictional elements that it will "drink" from the real, deep permeability formats. I'm interested in, for example, the issues that revolve around the own limit of the documentary. These limits are interesting for questioning, so if we're talking about a word I have some affection that is the parafiction, has to do with creating documentaries grounded on reality and the viewer believe and there is an inherent authority to the film because it is based on facts, it is almost a story, but then there is an almost literary component where imagination has its place.

So which of your works do more shows this dimension of parafiction?
SL: The approach is always the same, I circumscribe to reality, either for a period of time or geographically. Then how can I deal with this reality and present it? This translation process is also always creative. Today, the objective, or real can be interchangeable, or there is a reality mirror effect and an end product that almost no one believes that there may be, at heart we live in a world of make believe and has to do with these issues.

Some say you are part of the Portuguese alternative cinema, do your see yourself in that category?
SL: I do not know (laughs) the categories are from other's to place me. I do not label my self. In the background the cinema that I do have a family from other filmmakers out there and even the Portuguese panorama.

Why do not you find a niche here? That's is why you have to leave the country?
SL: The film I do is the festivals circuit, which seeks an active spectator, sometimes has the permeability to be presented in the museum space. It's a work that has a limited distribution, so no TV format, not so much in movie theaters. Honestly the film distribution channels that I do are limited, has to do with many factors not only with the work I do, has to do with the market in terms of Portugal, with the lack of movie theaters in our country and with the Portuguese public.

So who is the audience of your movies? The ones that go to museums?
SL: I have no idea. (laughs) I think it is diverse, with all types of people. I showed films for ladies 60 years, it is a very broad esprecto.

And what they say about your work?
SL: They say that documentaries are viable. I do not separate the public niches, this is a very abstract question, knowing who I work for. My films are to be seen, that's what I shoot them, I do not do it for targeted audience, although there is much that issue today, for me there is only the public.

You have a ongoing project now?
SL: I have several ongoing projects, I am in the middle of a feature film that was filmed in Peru, called "el dorado" with the production "the sound of fury", I'm shooting a film called "extinction in transnistia" which is a pro-Russian territory in Moldova and will be filmed also in Romania, Bulgaria, Germany and Portugal, it is a film that ends up question or comment in an abstract way the border issue in Eastern Europe, deep down what happened after the fall of the former USSR, it is a film that I hope would be ready already this year. I have a fiction short film to run next summer and then have smaller projects, one of them divided between Portugal, Beirut and Dubai. I am also preparing an exhibition of visual arts in Lisbon will present unpublished projects in early June this year.

"El Dorado" is about what?
SL: It's past in the highest city in the world, five thousand meters of altitude and is a film that turns out to portray a community of individuals working alone in that place, because there are a number of gold mines where they work for thirty days without fixed pay and then on the 31 can go to find mine and what they find it's theirs, it is a lottery process. It is also about how all the mining town entails a number of issues intrinsic to the site.

That is why documentaries your themes are always people or groups of people who are out of society?
SL: They are marginal situations.

It is purposeful or not?
SL: It is because is about the voiceless. Realities sometimes unknown and once again has to do with the idea of limit, to seek to exploit this issue either geographically, or almost physical. In the background are remote locations, there is a lack of control, are almost violent and hostile and has to do with how I position myself before these realities. There is a friction, a confrontation in move me to these territories, I am a foreign body in these realities, there is this clash that I hope to occupy the place and then comes the opportunity to make a documentary, it has to do with my movie making process .

How they look to you? You have a frail figure and you're a woman, it does not weigh?
SL: Sometimes turns out to be an advantage, it is difficult to say. I have this fragile and tiny figure.

Yes and you are foreign.
SL: Right. It's about the process of waiting, I try to "earn" their trust, but the other hand, will always be foreign.

Do you make a preparation before filming?
SL: No, because I assume that making documentaries is not a "pretty" act. It is a job that entails a number ethical and moral issues, where there is also a power relationship on the object that is being filmed. Now, there are formulas to find a balance, but ultimately it is always the director who controls the final product, because we are making private matters in public and this act is not done lightly, because it entails a responsibility. Linked to this issue is also my introducing, it is much more honest. The film is a transaction in which one who is being filmed give something, I get something in retourn, but also give something back and that one also gets something. It is a pact that has to be very clear from the beginning, I will not create a connection with a person, it is not fake, but for me the distance is essential if we became friends and we built a relationship, it is after. I'm doing a movie and this entails a number of issues, it is the cleaner way to do this, but most of all I am interested in this first meeting.

Approximately 54% of domestic households has at least a dog or a cat.

The data represent an increase of 9 percentage points in just four years, this is one of the main conclusions of a study by GfK published at the end of 2015, explaining that this trend is due to changes in households, as well as evidence that pets contribute to the physical and psychological well-being of the "owners". These figures show that the animals are gaining more and more space within the housing, verifying also that the vast majority of families consider them as members and essential part of their lives. Therefore, there is also another trend that stands out the most humane treatment of dogs and cats, which leads to the establishment of a much more emotional attachment and emotional than functional. As in many other countries, Portugal has recorded, including more dogs and / or cats in the household than children.
The study also finds that nearly half of the dogs are breed (48%) and that preferences go Poodle, Labrador Retriever, Pincher, German Shepherds and Portuguese Podengo. The increase is the number of these animals to live at home (53%) and the fact that the Portuguese adopt more dogs (15% versus 3% in 2011), despite being Predominately (56%).

Also in cats are found the same trends. 28% are of race and in the top 5 is Siamese, Common European, Persian, English Blue at short and Russian Blue. There has been a very sharp increase of adopted cats (25% versus 3% in 2011) and, as with dogs, these animals live mostly indoors (64%).

However, with respect to the care of dogs and cats, in both cases, the "owners" have as main areas of concern, health and nutrition. However, also consider hygiene and health confort. So, it appears that increasingly takes the "four-legged friend" to the vet mainly for vaccination (91% in the case of dogs and 72% in cats), but also for internal / external deworming. In the food grade that is lower give leftover food (-32% in dogs and 40% in cats, as compared to 2011) and to focus more dry food (76% in dogs and 69% in cats ). In both cases, the food is selected according to the preference / animal taste. Therefore, it is the power that the "owners" spend more money (60% in dogs and 61% in cats).

Finally, the GfKTrack.2Pet also presents the ranking of European countries with pets. Portugal is positioned in 12 of the ranking which is topped Russia, France, Italy, Germany and UK. Worldwide, the US emerged as the country most "pet-friendly", as they have the highest penetration pets with 65% of households owning at least one.

Source: Study GfKTrack.2PETs Portugal (Job 2015)

It is a text where I want to do the analysis of the events that shook the media last year.

I would say first of all that not very much appreciate this idea of balance, although I have made them as you know. However, this year I decided to write a different text. I want to address the key words, at least I consider relevant of the year that has passed and that will continue to ser the media agenda in this 2016.

My first word of the year is fear. The last terrorist attacks in several countries continue to sow chaos and distrust all over the world. The recent attacks in Europe only proves that the biggest weapon of these Islamic extremist groups is fear. We do not know who they are, how many are they, what they think and the worst when they strike again and all these questions are indeed a powerful weapon. Before the end of the year were reported numerous possible attacks that were prevented in time by the security forces, but does all that information conveyed by the media help? Gives the impression that the more we know we feel less secure and it seems that the terrorists "play" with us the worst possible way at the psychological level. I believe that Europeans, in general, they feel harassed, are just like people after an assault in their homes, their privacy is violated and they feel insecure in what they thought was a safe place, because after all they can come back, right?

Immigrants was chosen as the word of the year, I agree and I think that will continue to be relevant in 2016. The migratory waves that have gained greater expression in 2015 demonstrate not only that logistically and politically we are not prepared to receive millions of people fleeing war, poverty and hunger, and psychologically Europeans in their large majority prefers to ignore this wave of moving people. The consequences are notorious, more intolerant with the existing Muslim communities in Europe, increasingly racism regarding people with dark hair, brown eyes and tan skin, as if there is a stereotype already set, an assume xenofonism openly assumed and without constraints by several European parties movements, just look at the growth of far-right parties at the polls in not just one, but several of the so-called developed countries and the closing of the borders of many of the neighboring nations of those migratory routes. I recently saw a movie that made me think a lot about this this issue, entitled "Sarah's Key" on the massacre of French Jews. There is one scene in particular that caught my attention by the intelligence of the script, a small essay discusses the atrocities of the so called "concentration of the Vel 'd'Hiv' and how people preferred to ignore what was happening to the Jews fleeing death or disappear simply from their home, or the ghetto, one of the characters points out who she feels ashamed of this indifference of the majority and that this will not happen again if repeated, but behold, one recalls that the very same scenario could apply to current immigrants who die on Europe's shores, after all it is preferable to pretend it has nothing to do with us? It is very easy to condemn others in the past and look with a certain arrogance towards a society we considered retrograde, but were they? Today, you who is reading this article, are you not part of a majority that prefers to ignore the problem? Let the politicians solve this issue, right? It happened the same in World War II and the result is known.

Connect remains in my view relevant in 2016, not for the best reasons I might add, although new technologies have been revolutionizing the world in terms of communication, shortening time and distances, contrary to what would be expected does not bring us together quite the contrary, we increasingly live isolated in our "bubble" in our "cocoon" as Faith Popcorn describes in her book, "eve-lution," which has never been more timely than now. If you notice everything can be purchased now online is not even need to leave home, at least in the more developed societies, we can study, work and have a decent life without leaving our four walls, while avoiding being confronted with the unpredictable violence that is lived on the streets. It is also perhaps the most self-surveillance society ever. When George Orwell wrote "1984", he imagined a world ruled by the "Big Brother" that could even control the thoughts of its citizens. At the present, people write and photograph every moment of their existence, no matter how trivial it may be, there are cameras everywhere, in public buildings, on the streets, in our homes all for the sake of our own security, not to mention the social networks and search engines who collect precious information about our tastes and preferences and they do not need to pay, we provide all this information for free and we do not believe that any of this is invasion of privacy, quite the contrary. The irony if you not yet realized it, is that it was not necessary to create a government that controls the people, their thoughts and tastes, we are all are the "big brother" of our own lives and it is already so accepted that we never feel the need to question it.
People, on the other hand, all over the globe are increasingly dependent on their vituais toys and is already so notorious that direct contact is scarce, just take a closer eye on a terrace, or in a restaurant, or even in a bar one can easily see that people do not communicate. Are connected to their mobile phones, ipads and laptops, do not even talk to each other, they are physically there, but absent at the same time. Makes sense? To illustrate this idea I will briefly tell the story of a very interesting article I read on this very issue, a famous restaurant in New York (which I cannot remember the name) that has existed since the 70s, was been a target of lawsuits by customers who complained that the food came cold to the table. The management aware of the bad publicity and it's entails decided to review all procedures from the moment the waiter wrote down the request, the kitchen times and how long it took the dish to arrive the the table. They found it took about half an hour as occurred almost from the opening day and they even bother to see the old Beta and VHS cassettes to check whether there was difference and what they found? That within 30 years everything had changed. If in the past people entered the restaurant, made their request, drank an appetizer and talked while awaiting at the present customers come in, ask something from the menu and when the food arrives at the table, or they are already entertained with their gadgets and they almost not notice the arrival of the food, because you need to be online forever, or they entertained them selves by taking pictures of the dishes, which immediately they post on the social networks, which then immediately comment on everything and anything and when they decide to eat, it is already cold. It is clear that to avoid future lawsuits the restaurant in question published a huge ad in the largest circulation newspaper in the city and in "craigslist" with all these findings and assumes that no longer will be held responsible for the bad behavior of their customers. Makes you think, right?

The fictional personalities created in social networks are another facet of the same problem, have you notice how we all are happy, or are constantly on a party or in vacation? Nothing is real, everything is assembled and adjusted with photoshop for optimal view. I wonder what kind of society are we creating where people suffer from an apparent rampant narcissism where everything is seemingly perfect and beautiful and they shows it all ???? I look with much concern at this brutalization of the new generations and of how people are no longer valued for their expertise, or knowledge but by their appearance and how many followers have in their social pages, think a little, if one day and it's not an impossible scenario if the internet fails what will they do? Have you thought that the only ones that get away are those who knew the world before the arrival of new technologies? Am I right or am I wrong?

Woman is a word that remains unfortunately a hot topic. The scenes of sexual violence that occur with great frequency in many countries where women are still seen as inferior beings now reached Europe. The recent attacks that occurred in Cologne and other European capitals at the end of the year are an important example for the worse. In the XXI century we are still confronted with all kinds of violence, whether physical, and psychological, even in the so-called developed societies. Women are still the main victims, all over the world, of traffic of human beings and the lack of any rights, although it has finally been agreed a document at the UN aimed at preventing sexual violence in war zones. The truth of the matter is that these cases continue to tarnish our reality and I will point out again the case of the girls who were abducted by Boko Haram and whose families still suffer in silence. I insist on remenbering the attacks on several young ladies in India, the disfigured women of Pakistan and the trafficked girls from Thailand. Closer, I remember with shame that immigrant women, in the middle of Europe, are coerced by traffickers into prostitution as a payment for their passage and their family, facing by the indifference of the authorities. For all this, unfortunately, it will be another year of fighting gender discrimination. But not all are bad news for the first time in the history of Islamic countries, a woman was elected a member of parlament in Saudi Arabia and in my country also a historical statistics occur, a third of the Republic's Assembly MP's are women. The next goal? To elect a woman prime-minister! And the struggle continues...

Celina Pereira is not only a singer of mornas from Cape Verde's, it's a recolector of the oral past of her country. A tireless work audible through its multilingual audio-books that bear the Cape Verdean culture to the four corners of the world.

Let's do a retrospective of your career and remember the first album which was released in 1986.
Celina Pereira: It was before in the 70s in 1986 was released my first LP.

Only sung in Creole.
CP: Yes.

This record work coincided with a turning point in Green Cape.
CP: Yes.

The date was not by chance or was it?
CP: It was by chance, but there is always happy coincidences and I think what happened at a particular time.

Looking back and for these 29 years of democracy in Geen Cape and there is talk that the new generations, even in music, are forgeting the Creole substituing it by Portuguese. How do you feel about it all?
CP: I do not feel that young people are forgetting the Creole, because it's always the mother tongue, we hear in the bellies of our mothers, I think it is indelible. It is even a writing movement, especially in social networks, sms messages, in which adolescents always write in Creole. The language is not forgotten, what I feel is that there is less rigor in learning the Portuguese language, because we see the poor conditions of the Portuguese learning with applicants of higher education come to Portugal.

But it also did not have to do with the fact that they put aside the language of the oppressor people.
CP: Yes, the colonizer. You know that in all situations of history, in the life of a country there are more fanatical people for some things. I'm not criollista, I was born in a country that being so small as it is, but being a bit scattered throughout the world, is a nation with a universal dimension and we live in a time when the more languages we speak, the better we live. I was born speaking Creole and learn to speak Portuguese is a privilege, I turn out to be bilingual, but is even greater honor to be multilingual because we live in societies and worlds of that nature. As proof I edited a few years back some audio-books, always featuring of my multilingualism. I began to edit this type of format in 1991.

Soon enough you began to edit audio-books, formats which, as a rule, are associated with public who cannot read?
CP: I chose this format because it is a way of recording and transmission of what I wanted to do, I learned that in a much more evolved country from the one I live, which is the US. I had a first contact with this country between the 90s, when came out my first work on traditional tales. A story teller of Cape Verdean showed me an audio book, by the way, a number of which had already been launched in the US terrritory. I began to think that the way I wanted to tell my stories would also like that, you could hear and read them. Turns out that same time was invited to go to South Africa, to a conference, had contact with a cause that I advocated of protecting blind children and began to think the best way these children follow my book would be if they hear the story, they would be able to read it, but it could have an inscription in Braille, which until now could not done baceuse they say it is more difficult, it is more expensive for several reasons. I chose this format because it was the way I found to be able to cover the largest number of listeners, or people who could "drink" what I wanted to pass on my country's culture.

You recognize, however, that your name was always associated with Cape Verdean music and the style of mornas. And how does the audience of Cape Verde and around the world, faces the music and culture of your country?
CP: There is always a huge curiosity about Green Cape and know it's the best flag of my country, although I have the heart in another, which is Portugal, where I chose to live. Green Cape is a country best known for music in recent years and by the voice of a woman who has disappeared which is Cesaria Evora, she was a singer of mornas and coladeiras. I am a teal of mornas, and never sang only this style, having come over the years doing a research paper on oral traditions, involving the "urcas", "roda” songs, counter-dances, "rabolhos" and "brincadeira” songs. What I feel is that mornas is an element that has been applauded, raise as a flag of the Cape Verdean people, by our poets, intellectuals, our composers, because it is our soul, it is as fado and it's really this musical style that unites all people, not the drumming, nor is "tabanca", nor "coladeira" or the "mazurka". Mornas are composed in Portuguese and Creole is where I feel the fullness that all poets mean. Note, "coladeiras” is a genus involving some facets of daily life, but only have, for example, the satirical side. Mornas, on the other hand, are satirical, about love, longing, are a starting point, there is a whole rainbow of emotions. I've done shows in Cape Verde, I was in St Vincent two years ago and essentially sang up mornas and I felt that the people wanted to hear it, was not there to dance, they wanted to hear the melody attached to words and are the essence of what I continue to do.

But, if you give importance to the word, the story how in the end you make the selection? Having a broad range.
CP: When I recorded my first EP 45 rotations, the inspiration was my mother, by the way, I learned to sing mornas at home. It is true that I also learned choral singing in high school, where they taught mornas in Portuguese, at the time there was taught the creole. The first person I "drank" was my mother, also from an uncle who died relatively young and the truth is I have gone after older people to teach me. I might add that at a certain stage of my life, lately I have not done it, I've been 20 years with a micro-cassette recorder that was required when I was visiting family in Green Cape, because I always had a great curiosity to know of myself. I usually say that the colonizers did not teach me anything about me, taught about it, cities, rivers and mountains of Portugal. Did not teach me about the streams of St. Anthony or St. Nicholas or Santiago and to know me as colonized or formerly colonized, I always wanted to know about the "mazurkas", the counter dances when my mother talked about it I did lots of questions, by the way, my curiosity and intuition has led me to know about these things. I'm a half-breed, a country with a rich culture that is not confined to mornas and coladeiras who were the colonial taste, because at the time was what they liked to hear more.

You said the went after old people recording, because these musical styles were only of oral tradition?
CP: Yes, you know the African culture is essentially based on oral tradition, that populate African societies, so that there are some ethnic groups, such as mandigas in Guinea-Bissau, for example, are great counters and stories singers, tell stories of kings, kingdom emperors, everything is always sang and oral. This tradition is lost if we do not record and in Green Cape there has never been a concern to make an ethnological basis or anthropological if you want the Cape Verdean musical culture, there has been occasionally some things and I have this responsibility because they do not know other cape verdean artists who have made this survey, has been a struggle.

At what age you started doing this?
CP: I have done this since I was 30 years old. I began to pursue my mom on vacation after breakfast to tell me stories, "roda” songs and teach me the oldest things. I repeat, my intuition led me to look for things, to dig if you want.

This demand continues, has been a landmark in recent work that you have developed.
CP: Yes, my work on Cape Verdean story telling is an example, was released on vinyl in the '90s, is a work done essentially in Creole and translated into Portuguese and English. Then I realized, as I am training teacher, who knew that only speaking in Creole I did not reach the general public, we are talking about 300 million Portuguese and decided that my next work would be in that language. It's my latest audio-book and this translated into English and French. But the talks, the stories are in Portuguese and can say that this collection of CPLP tales continues to be my fight, because having directed this work, always said that in the confines of Angola, Mozambique, and Green Cape where teachers do not have electricity, which does not reach the internet how can they hear me? It needs this format, because I do the telling of stories and then there are other artists who have done so.

What is the feedback from these Cape Verdean readers, they shall revise their childhood and comes to you to address these memory?
CP: Yes, it has happened things that surprised me. I did the launch in the Netherlands and the USA and you cannot imagine how older people younger than me and my age who has come to me to tell me, "God bless you I had never heard these stories, not this ditty" when the first record of short stories came out in Portugal, I gave an interview do not know what channel and there was a group of ladies who called for the Cape Verdean Association, because they had my contact wanted to know when would I release it because they wanted to buy the album was not for the grandchildren, but for them, there were "roda” songs that had never sung in Green Cape until I address this matter and release these songs. Thanks to Isaura Gomes, president of Mindelo Chamber, made my foray in schools was in 26 schools over a month took up a musician with me and in the end she told me "you are stealing my popularity because street children only speak of Celina Pereira ".

And now what is your next project?
CP: My head does not stop. At this time is already in publishing an upcoming audio book, I do not know when it will come out with another collection of traditional tales. It's a story I wrote in honor of my mother, but it will be a multilingual audio book, I want to continue in this area. Due to the current societies I cannot edit anything in only one language, it will not be written only in Portuguese, will also be published in English, Creole, Spanish. It's just a story, but I will not tell you the title, is already being translated.

But people can purchase any of your other audio-books where? In online stores?
CP: No, my latest audio-book that is "history of the drum open world" is sold out, the former it is too. At this time in the Cape Verdean Association in Lisbon has still 3 or 4 copies and unfortunately I am no longer in the market, even in Green Cape you cannot find them.

Why not make more copies?
CP: Because it has been an adventure of mine, of my pocket, my first LP I paid it, my work on tales was paid on borrowed money from my mother, my brother, the whole family, I had almost no support. There were two institutions that are indicated on the back cover on vinyl that I dropped because they promised and then did not give anything. I've been doing "crazy" because of this my healthy insanity to walk behind the traditions. I'm sorry, because all that has been done is for my personal pleasure, but is serving a cause that I have taken as a mission. Incidentally, a friend of mine says that only women have this ability to face a mission and bring it to an end and this is my cause that I imposed myself and which I will never give up. I feel that Green Cape needs it, because we have to invest in children and its their future showing their identity and not by spontaneous generation. I have green eyes because my maternal great-grandfather was white, light hair and blue eye. With my questions and talking to my mother I learned I and my brothers have a Madeiran ancestor. We are not here by chance, now, I walk behind the mornas, we do not have in Green Cape serious research, I have no memory of what is written about mornas to cantadeiras and singers who've been to Portugal in the 30s, the first colonial exhibition and after the exposure of the Portuguese world, in the 40s, we do not have that record. I still find it a huge gap, we must do it in terms of training of future memory to our children and grandchildren. I think this is my spirit teacher for life, all do I gave classes for only three years, I find it curious that this will be with me until the end of my days, because I only know that I know nothing.

The flat boot is a regional footwear production brand that has been innovating through a collection of new models, called "botachas" which intends to launch in new markets.

How did you start this project innovation of flat boots?
Carlos Vieira: There was a need to always innovate based on the traditional model of boots. Are requirements of the market itself, because the flat boot is not a very salable product, there are actually some stores that sell it, obviously that is not a constant monthly sales, but we had to do something. I bought this company, because the owner had to be away, it made me an offer and I accepted. I understood that we should create other models to somehow get leveraging for the company. I call "botachas", the new models, since they can be made into all kinds of materials, from leather to fabric.

What has been the acceptance of botachas?
CV: It's been very good.

Who will buy?
CV: Mostly are the locals. More women, but also men. It is a unisex model. Tourists do not buy much and when they do prefer the traditional boot, because it is a regional genuine product.

Which one is the most popular model?
CV: We have a model made in two parts. It has woven with colorful pattern, pinstripe, called regional, on the front and denim on the back, it is the one that sells more. We also have on the contrary, but the most acquired is the one I referred earlier.

And the men what do they buy?
CV: The more basic models, only denim, suede or plain. The elected colors are black and brown, men do not like very colorful tones, prefer solid colors.

And in terms of the emigrant community have you got some requests for "botachas"?
CV: This is a market that necessarily I have to explore. I've had a meeting with a personality that is the link between the island and the communities.

And the site does not receive orders?
CV: No, we do not have site only facebook. In fact, is my intention to put on several markets, because I want this product to be sold abroad. The problem is the cost, sending a box of boots to Brazil, or South Africa is expensive, but we are making some efforts in this issue.

What is the next step for your brand in 2016?
CV The next step is to register the brand for various reasons, the main one is to have a security guarantee. Then, I wanted to be able to start the export process, as I said earlier, the market of the Portuguese communities is huge, has great potential and we have to go searching for them. As you know Ribeira Brava is a land of immigrants and in this end of the year I already sold some "botachas" to Venezuela, Switzerland, Canadá and South Africa. Now, if you can put a pair of boots at a gas sale abroad It is easier to spread the concept of the product. As I said, I cannot expect them to contact me, I have to get to those countries, either through facebook, or other media.

It is one of the owner of the poetic cycle begin with "Brumaire" and "Derivation of Brumaire." According to Cape Verdean writer Fatima Bettencourt "is an encyclopedic work not so much by the extesion of the text, but for its intensity and urgency as it rush us to look at the classics, not only in quick visits, but in constant interaction. Armenian Vieira offers these poems as who shoots scented stones".

Why Brumaire?
Arménio Vieira: They made me this question a thousand times, one of the correlations can be the story of Napoleon Bonaparte's coup, but another of a Cape Verdean phenomenon that appears in January, especially when the planes do not take off. Not now, because at night it is possible.

The Brumaire is the odyssey of the Cape Verdean people?
AV: When I begin to write I did not choose the theme is almost a moment of meditation, that is, from the first sentence and from then on I do not stop, then there's the rewrite. To say that the Brumaire is an odyssey perhaps to overcome the misery, I made a trip to get to independence, because I'm from there. I'm not thinking of Green Cape, there is something that is in me and my country will be also.

Also you said are a disruptive writer who wanted to break a little...
AV: Not little, totally. It is an epistemological cut as when Copernicus appears with a new theory there is a cut, it takes over, almost kill him and that classic revolutionary notion was awarded to a man of the church, because he was a priest. When Darwin begins to investigate his theory of evolution, in terms of natural science, it was a jump, a revolution.

So, you wanted to make this disruption in terms of writing?
AV: I would not do this, there is no command. There is something in me, a demon, a god, an angel who makes me do it, is not thought, is almost instinctive. I'll tell you, before independence we libertarians wrote poems, although there the same political background poetry was choosing themes that later surpassed. When we reached the independence I said to myself like a woman I would have reached menopause, I will no longer give birth any more, stick and over, but this poetic virus was there and made me write otherwise. There is an important moment in my life is when I took a trip to the Soviet Union and in poetic terms have not learned anything at all, but in return my friend Mario Fonseca, who at the time was one of the most important poets of Green Cape, the earliest, told me, Arménio what are you reading? What appears, because in my country there are no libraries and he offered me the great French classics. I read Baudelaire, Rambaud, Verlaine, Valerie, Prévert his counsel instead of reading for pleasure, did it under compulsion, read, reread and studied and in the middle of what I remember they gave me a book of Ezra Pound a great American poet who later became involved with the Italian fascism and was demonized so it was the only American who spoke about Camões placing it in a very high place, said about him that he was a poet who knew everything there was to know. The poet should not only write, should know and assimilate the great writers is what I did and I think it was not tiring, did not upset me.

And where do you get Shakespeare in the Brumaire?
AV: I had to read these great pieces. Not chosen, they appeared in my life, I was not looking for them, someone always offered me a book.

The book also deals with the devil are your demons at the present?
AV: Where did the devil come from? It is from Jewish books of the Old and New Testament. It is the principle of evil, there is a thesis that is God and he is good, is a pole and in one end the devil, Satan and the evil which is much earlier than the Christian doctrine, because the prophet Zoroaster's "thus spoke Zarathustra " from Friedrich Nietzsche created this principle of dualism of good and evil, only an optimistic perspective, at the end there would be an almost eternal struggle, in the end of time good will triumph over evil. In the New Testament there is that terrible thing of the door is narrow and we all are called, few are chosen and there are people who are saved, but most go to hell. I think I see the Christ, the master must pardon, says yes to a friend and love him again, work is when the guy loves the enemy, but to the Jew is an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. Christ says to forgive 70x7, is a metaphor, that is always forgive, forgive anyone ever. So Christ prays is extremely good, now is a devil because it sends people to hell, angry with a fig tree that is old and cannot give figs, admire a man who was the incarnation of God himself is hungry because he wants, he turns a fish in a thousand and turns one stone into bread.

You like in your writing to have those contradictions?
AV: The contradictions are not mine. I approach so much, love, hell, death.

It is your guiding principle that there is always an opposite?
AV: When I write not choose the theme, not the word. It happens and appears.

You think a lot before writing?
AV: I watch a worm from it may be the idea for a poem. There is one thing that I admired, who may shocked me, or I liked it, but I will not say it, I'll have to write this poem and even I wants to forget this thing, it's like a demon into me and tell me that I have to write and I write.

There are days when you cannot write?
AV: There are times when in Green Cape I am barren, like a woman who cannot give birth.

There are many periods like that?
AV The idea for a poem comes to me. Then there is the problem of picking up the pen and write. So much poetry I have imagined and never recorded, then there is one that I write. Jean Paul Sartre said that every man is a poet, but no, I am recognized for what I register, if I do not, does not exist. I write books to be read, but I will not read them, I look back to correct them, or to cut a further. A extra word can destroy a poem unless you can save it, if the word is not there and you'll have to find it.

And is a habit this constant revision?
AV: I'll tell you a story, when I wrote "Mitografias" I took a friend Short, poet and he told me that the poem on Camões was the best I've ever written, it was magnificent, many people wrote about the poet Portuguese, but there is one thing you say in a verse that the poet is the letter A of a line and João Cabral de Melo Neto was even our contemporary the Z of this straight why? They are two different poetic. He picked at the end line and said that is waht there is, he say it's abstract geometry, the trace we do even with very fine pencil on paper is not a line, because it has no dimension, the point is a circle, because if it comes under the microscope is a circle involved in circumference, has dimension, the point is an abstraction, it is ideal, everything is abstract geometry. The line has no beginning or end, in scientific terms is a segment of the line is a piece, the world is finite, the universe is probably endless, we also are finite and there is the A and Z. He made a good point on the Camões's poem, on the other hand, fell into a trap to fix me because after I learned from him, I read more books of geometry and mathematics and few poets speak of exact sciences for scientists poets are inspired fools, crazy subversives. The poet is a demon that had a deity in him, who had no own voice, it was almost an irrational being, that did not own his voice, not the philosophers, Plato was rational, Homero was crazy.

It is considered a devil to be a poet?
AV: Neither God nor devil. Until evidence to the contrary I am a human being, limited, weak. Sometimes I lack the brave, I am someone who has a knack for dancing or singing or playing any musical instrument, but like music and dance.

And his poems are for the Cape Verdean singers to sing?
AV: Only if it is a foreigner, because the Cape Verdean singer has a rule, a religion, is expressed only in Creole, in Portuguese is very rare. You can hear 3.4 warm in Portuguese, the rest is Creole. Few people understand my poems, it is true.

Therefore you invented heteronyms?
AV: No, I invented a pseudonym. The heteronyms is an invention of Fernando Pessoa that is his alone. Ricardo Reis is one of them, which becomes a character from Saramago and in a way it also becomes the heteronym of the writer, this it, any dramatic writer writes in several voices, the characters do not match, you have the hero and the villain the writer almost unfolds, he knows the saint, because that in it, but also knows the devil. A good man never had a rival? No one passed him a trick? Nor ever wanted to kill someone? The perfect world was a bummer, I do not say where they should be poor, but if everything runs well, if we're all immortal, beautiful and young, this was a great nuisance. It is a dilemma, because Hamlet says "to sleep is to die, the die is to sleep" but he did not want to die, he wants to sleep, but maybe want to have a long sleep.

Eternity is your work?
AV: No this is impossible, because our system, our galaxy disappears.

But the books are not.
AV: No, the sun dies.

Not interested in being immortal through your work?
AV: Immortal yes, but with periods when I would be killed back. Not always agreed, it's like not to sleep, for me it would be hell. I like to sleep, but I also like to wake up. The good thing is not to have extremes.

The Teatro Municipal Baltazar Dias offers all Tuesdays guided tours in Portuguese and English at 10 am, where it shows it's facilities, you can appreciate the works of artist Alfonso Costa and the backstage of the theater itself.

Henrique Afonso Costa, better known as Afonso Costa as he signed, settled on the island of Madeira, in the web of Theatre Baltazar Dias over the 70s as a resident artist, with the aim to develop various artworks through the production of scenarios, props for the various shows and performed numerous restorations inside. Only recently the estate has been the subject of a study by Sara Canavezes, a superior technique of art history of the city council of Funchal, which has been cataloging the work of this artist in particular the paintings and in the process as she states "verified the existence of the screen, which I found to be of Afonso Costa, who was already studying and was carefully preserved as it was painted in 1978". For over twenty years this work has not been seen since because the pulley and balances system was broken and has only recently been possible to go down through a new mechanism that was installed by the technicians of the theater. In an unprecedented initiative the Funchal Municipal Council plans to open this cultural space to the public every week in order to show the screen is not used, that according to the technique has "very cultural and artistic value. We want to show more assets, not just the visual aspect, ie, plays and the concerts, we have art and we want to it make known. " The piece is unique in its kind, because "at least here in the island we do not have other, perhaps there will be more works in the theater D. Maria in Lisbon. As we did not use these systems for many years, since currently we used the projection video the screen becomes unique in its kind, because its function is different, is lay ahead, was used in between the plays, for this purpose has discrete holes allowing the technical or production see the public to check if everything was calm, controlled, or were liking or not the plays on stage. "