Mindelact Artistic and Cultural Association

mindelact 2021 editorial

Both the pain that afflicts the most and the joy that encourages the most happen in the moments when we know that our present could be different.  

In a year in which Cape Verde and the world lived with irreparable losses while they glimpsed the dawn drawing on the horizon, we are reminded, in a particularly acute way, of the unique value of each moment we have passed and that we yearn to be able to spend in the many or few precious ones. days that we have left in this life that more than ever we are aware of being an improvisation without a script.  

We know that our present could be different. We know that we could not be crying the pain of the departure of so many dear people. But our historic resilience also shows us that being aware that things could be different forces us to have hope – not a blind, naive or unrealistic hope, but a hope that calls us to assume our historic and national, collective responsibility. and personal, to ensure that the losses of our journey have not been in vain. 

After, in 2020, we insisted on resisting the world situation and insisted on keeping the flame of art alive with the festival possible, in 2021, we once again place, in the midst of mourning and in the midst of struggle, the Mindelact that everyone knows on the stages of Mindelo and Praia, embodying a hope that is anything but abstract.  

Without that stubborn and bittersweet hope of ours and our partners, what seemed impossible a year ago would, in fact, be impossible: we would have a 10-day festival with artists from three continents putting on stage 30 shows in a total of 40 presentations. on two islands; having six world premieres, including one in Praia that pays tribute precisely to the one who best taught us to materialize hope, Amílcar Cabral; we mark the 30th anniversary of the iconic Cape Verdean dance company Raiz di Polon, which presents, in this edition, a reinterpretation of the watershed piece “CV Matrix 46”; and  we welcome artists from 14 different countries and from several islands of Cape Verde, representing a wide range of languages in which innovation, contemporaneity and the experimental character of many of the proposals stand out, all which, however, share the mission of opening minds, initiating debates on important topics of today, and triggering the transformation of and reflection on mentalities – all of them indispensable ingredients in the operationalization of hope. We will resume the Mindelact extension in Praia, taking to the capital of the country a very strong program divided between three stages. And, most importantly, we will strive to make the materialization of our hope worthy of the people who fought alongside us and who fed us with their conviction that the present can be different when our own belief was not enough. For these, our humble and eternal thanks. 


This one's for you, Sams.