AGORA [NOW] is a show created by Bruno Cochat with children and young people aged between 10 and 13, which addresses the passage of time’s perception in different age groups and the various ways of enjoying the moment. Following E se tudo fosse amarelo? [What if everything were yellow?], by Sílvia Real and Grupo 23: silence! (Culturgest, 2015), the children are once again simultaneously creators and performers in a show co-produced by Teatro Municipal São Luiz and Sines’ World Music Festival, in which Dance, Music, Visual Arts and Philosophy intersect.

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Over two years of regular work, based on weekly meetings at the Teatro da Voz, 11 children guided by Bruno Cochat, together with Sílvia Real, Sofia Sequeira, and Rita Pedro, developed concentration and movement exercises, participated in dance-theatre and music masterclasses, attended and discussed concerts, shows, films and books, and debated the issues concerning them in thinking sessions.

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This multidisciplinary process brought about the script and structure that give body and voice to AGORA, a dance-theatre show built upon the doubts, perplexities, and hypotheses put forward by each member of the group, united in the adventure of seeking meanings for the Present, and for the various times it may contain.

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It talks to the Present abstractly considered, and quite particularly the present of AGORA’s protagonists, the same ones who discovered in this co-creative experience the opportunity to feel, communicate, reflect, and share collectively with adults, artists, and thinkers, each one’s unique way of approaching a period so challenging for both educators and young people, parents and children, which is the transition from childhood to adolescence.

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In a country where many voices have questioned formal education as it has developed, but where education through art and for citizenship remains far from being a democratic reality, it is necessary move beyond the issue of technological opportunities and further our understanding of the importance of fostering creativity in new generations and building situated and meaningful knowledge, rooted in experimentation and the opportunity to learn by trying.

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AGORA is the result of a multidisciplinary co-creation process between adults and children, as unstable and ephemeral as is, by definition, the matter of all artistic "nows," especially those of performing arts, though we believe that it is also an enduring experience as it results from a process deeply merged and inscribed into each of its creators’ life history.

Bruno Cochat (2017)