Manifestos exist in art and politics, in philosophy and sociology. They usually offer analyses of the existing world and outline proposals for the future, demand radical change or lament the utopias that still haven’t arrived, sometimes playfully, sometimes polemically. Some that use aggressive populism as their weapon. Others that try to calmly express the urgency of their issues for the open-minded reader. Isabel Costa’s production is interested in the latter category. Inspired by a project by the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, she has examined texts written after the year 2000 and put them together in a performance that the audience experiences in small groups as they walk through an empty building. There, the audience encounters seven performers one after the other, who recite extracts from seven manifestos: in an intimate situation and without the usual trappings of political activism, so that it is left up to the encounter and the person listening to see what resonates.


text selection and creation Isabel Costa
with Rendy Anoh, Camilla Berardi, Beatrice Cortesi, Anna Dall’Olio, Irene De Simone, Marco Montanari, Marco Saccomandi / Spazio A
dramaturgy support Daniel Gamito Marques
executive production Leonardo Garibaldi

production Os Possessos
coproduction Fundação Caixa Geral de Depósitos – Culturgest and Walk&Talk
in collaboration with La Corelli, ErosAntEros – POLIS Teatro Festival, Spazio A for the Italian version at POLIS 2025

project supported by the European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists (EFFEA), an initiative of the European Festivals Association (EFA), co-financed by the European Union

duration 70′

translation by Lucia Bellettini, Agnese Chierici, Luca Gianfelici, Francesca Lambertini, Adele Mazzoli, Giusi Merico, Silvia Nasini under the supervision of Prof. Giacomo Falconi, Università di Bologna – Dipartimento di Interpretazione e Traduzione


Isabel Costa, b. 1992, is a Portuguese actress working in theatre and cinema. Since 2014, a member of the Lisbon theatre collective, Os Possessos. She has been continually developing the manifestos project since 2019, with a focus on the theatrical encounter between performers and audience. It is her third production as a director. The performances have been enabled by the EFFEA-Discovery programme, an initiative of the European Festivals Association (EFA), co-funded by the European Union.

Founded in 2013, Os Possessos is a young theater company based in Lisbon and Almada. Currently made up of five members – Catarina Rôlo Salgueiro, Isabel Costa, João Pedro Mamede, Leonardo Garibaldi, Leonor Buescu – the company works on theatrical and performative projects, focusing on universal narratives and creating a shared fiction of reality between artists and audiences. Since 2013, they have presented the following works: Hanzel e Gretel (2013), Rapsódia Batman (2014), II – A Mentira (2015), Marcha Invencível (2017), O Novo Mundo (2018), Maratona de Manifestos and A Bolha (2019), Ainda Marianas (2022), Manifestos Para Depois do Fim do Mundo (2023), Victor ou as Crianças ao Poder (2024), Last Call (2024).

Spazio A was born in 2020 from the spontaneous union of people with different scenic and artistic experiences. In 2020 the group starts the urban performance project Poesie A Domicilio (Poems At Home), while from 2021 it organizes the theatrical program Ra-dici at the Vecchia Pesa di Classe (Ra), now in its fourth edition. In 2022, the monologue Metronomo debuts at Ravenna’s Teatro Rasi and is replicated throughout 2023. The Im labyrinth production debuts in April 2023, for the AL SOCJALE season promoted by Ravenna Teatro. In the same month, the collective participates in the finals of the PROSIT! prize for contemporary dramaturgy organized by Altrove Teatro Studio in Rome with the text La danza delle api, already a finalist in the NdN Network Drammaturgia Nuova 2022 call for proposals. Among the company’s various collaborations are those with Ravenna Teatro/Teatro delle Albe, Orchestra La Corelli, Lady Godiva Teatro, Nerval Teatro, Monica Francia, Classe Archeologia&Cultura, Informagiovani Ravenna, Andrea Bernabini, Gianluca Nanni, Jean Music Room. In 2024, an artistic collaboration with CISIM/LODC was initiated for the production of Panchatantra. Le mirabolanti avventure di Kalila e Dimna for Ravenna Festival 2024. In May 2024, the co-production together with Orchestra La Corelli Il diario di Gian Burrasca debuts in the children’s season of ERT- Teatro Bonci Cesena. In September 2024, the company stages the urban performance Il Cacciatore di Sogni in collaboration with Fira di sett dulur/Municipality of Russi (RA).