A concert with the Victor Jara Brigade and a Youth Municipal Assembly are some of the proposals of Coimbra City Council to celebrate the 50th anniversary of April 25, in a program that will have several moments in September.
The Victor Jara Brigade, a group that was born after the revolution in Coimbra in 1975, will perform at Praça do Comércio on April 25, in a concert that will also feature the participation of the Arzila Folkloric and Ethnographic Group, which was born in 1974, and the Tanto-Mar Collective, which brings together Portuguese and Brazilian musicians living in Coimbra, the City Council announced today at a press conference.
The concert, entitled “É Bonita a Festa” (It’s a Beautiful Party), will start at 6:30 p.m. and will include a moment when the three groups will perform together in Praça do Comércio.
On the night of April 24-25, at 00:30, there will be an urban intervention of virtual poetry by the artist Aglaíze Damasceno, entitled “Dentro de Ti Ó Cidade”, in Largo da Sé Velha, where the “Queima do Facho” takes place every year and where the house where Zeca Afonso lived is located.
In addition to the concert, there will also be a Youth Municipal Assembly in which representatives from the municipality’s secondary schools will take part in the morning, shortly after the solemn session marking the 50th anniversary of April 25, which will take place in the Great Hall of Coimbra City Hall.
On the day that the Carnation Revolution is celebrated, the Coimbra BD will also be inaugurated, with this year’s theme being “Freedom”, and the tourist route around Zeca Afonso’s Coimbra will be presented.
The mayor of Coimbra, José Manuel Silva, stressed that the municipality has sought to bring together and publicize the many initiatives of civil society and other institutions in the city that will celebrate April 25, choosing not to concentrate the municipality’s celebrations on that day.
The commission set up by Coimbra City Council to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in the municipality has chosen to dedicate the bulk of the initiatives to September, when several artistic proposals are planned that call for collective participation and creation.
“There will be a very symbolic moment in September, but we can’t announce it yet. The City Council is wholeheartedly behind the April 25 celebrations,” he said, noting that the municipality has allocated around 100,000 euros for the celebrations.
The president of the committee, the vice-rector of the University of Coimbra Delfim Leão, reaffirmed the need not to saturate the program “which was already expected to be rich” for April, noting that there will be several cultural events between September 20 and 22 to mark April 25, in a program that is not yet closed.
Delfim Leão said that there will be proposals aimed at engaging with the community, namely a documentary by Tiago Cravidão, which will give a voice to people from the various parishes in the municipality about how they experienced April, in an assembly format.
Another proposal, entitled “What if we did it all again?”, by Madalena Vitorino, will result in a collective creation that can “take the questioning of April further”, she explained.
“Music is what gives us the password and the starting point and it will also be present in a final show, with a community matrix and well-known artists who will try to bring the whole community to the final celebration,” he said.
The program of the various entities celebrating April 25 in the municipality is being compiled by the municipality and is available at agenda.coimbra.pt
