Canadian-Azorean
Encounter
By Elaine Avila
More Canadians than
ever joined “Encontro Pedras Negras,” an unpretentious, heartfelt writer’s
festival in the remote mid Atlantic island of Pico, in the Azores. The
festival, a part of the Azores Fringe, is named for Pico’s most famous writer,
Dias de Melo, and his book Pedras Negras.
Activities included
a welcome from the President of the Regional Assembly of the Azores and the
Mayor of Madalena (the city at the epicentre of the festival), visual art
openings, a discussion about Azorean writers and a lecture about those
specifically from Pico, book launches, live music, readings, museum tours, traditional dances, a tour of Pico Island and
Dias de Melo’s village led by his granddaughter Patricia Dias de Melo, the opening of Paim BookHouse Gallery in the
ancestral home of Canadian author Manuel Azevedo, a presentation of the
MiratecArts Writing Award to Carla Lima from São Miguel Island.
Writing sessions
were inspired by direct encounters with nature. We wandered through the
”Galeria Costa,” a vineyard built with emblematic black lava stones the first
Azoreans used as building materials, now filled with site specific art. Writers
from throughout the Azorean archipelago stood and read pieces, adding
literature to the vineyard. Another writing session involved planting ourselves
throughout a garden in the Wine Museum, featuring some of the oldest dragon
trees in the world.
Canadians of
Azorean descent Lisa Furtado, Manuel Azevedo and I could make powerful links to
writers who live throughout the Azorean archipelago, mainland Portugal and
France. Writers gathered in intimate spaces, reading and performing emerging
and published work for each other, always close to the sea. Being sheltered in
Azorean villages, “Encontro Pedras Negras” was uniquely less of a marketplace,
and more about writing and encountering each other, making connections to the
past and creating the future. As Founder and Artistic Director, Terry Costa,
also Canadian-born of Azorean background, the festival “is about realizing
dreams for all the participants.”
Photos by Helder
Gonçalves
MORE PHOTOS HERE:
Povoação,
quinta-feira, 1 de Junho de 2017.
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