It’s time to act: Empowering ageing, sisterhood identity, and legacy transmission through intergenerational community performance methods

Abstract

“Old woman? Who said that? We are still here!” is an intergenerational spectacle that premiered in October 2024 in Évora (Alentejo, Portugal), and counts with the participation of sixteen women on stage from 22 to 80 years old. Behind the scenes, there is a multidisciplinary team made up of 15 members, all teachers, researchers and students at the University of Évora. CHAIA is coordinator of this artistic participative based- research, embedded in the project Age Against the Machine: European Solidarity Network for Older Citizens Rights (2024-26), co-financed by the European Union under the programme CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values). We engaged with an intergenerational group of thirty participants into a dialogue valuing individual singularities and collective identifications through sensitive listening, using participative theatre methodologies, and participative artistic actions which helped us to build a collaborative dramaturgy. There has been a political, ethical, social, and cultural dimension in our work, reflected in a performance that reveals poetically and transversally themes such as ageing, feminist care ethics, gender rights, embodied and performing heritage, the re-signification and connection with the land and Alentejo landscape and the deep relationship with the cycles of nature. This testimonial work of embodied knowledge of past and present memories holds the pride of a process of legacy transmission. The group was empowered through togetherness, team solidarity, inclusion, and active participation, as well as through a process of fearless curiosity, intimacy and sisterhood, with a sustainable long-term effect on their lives and their close communities.