THE RIVERS OF THE COMMUNITY
A research and creation project
Sax on the Road + Binaural Nodar
August 21st – September 3rd, 2023

A project produced by Binaural Nodar with dissemination support from the Viseu Dão Lafões Intermunicipal Community.

Since the dawn of civilizations, riverside landscapes have been privileged places for the establishment and development of communities. Rivers are a source of drinking water, food, hygiene, communication between places, psychosocial well-being, collective encounters, leisure activities, artistic inspiration, symbolism and spirituality, among many other aspects.

The territory of the Viseu Dão Lafões Intermunicipal Community, comprised of fourteen municipalities in the Portuguese Centro region, includes a great diversity of rivers, framed from north to south by three main river basins: the Douro, the Vouga and the Mondego. These three rivers and their tributaries (such as the Paiva and the Dão) even define some of the borders between municipalities and, consequently, part of the map of the Viseu Dão Lafões intermunicipal community itself.

Riverside landscapes are therefore both natural and cultural realities and each riverside village, each bend of a river and each tributary, however small, helps to define the specific “spirit of place” of each of the countless communities that form a region.

Since the beginning of its activities in the region, Binaural Nodar has given crucial importance to riverside landscapes; firstly, because the cultural organization itself was literally born by the river, in the village of Nodar bathed by the Paiva river; but also because over the years it has developed artist residencies and festivals linked to some of the rivers in its intervention area, as was the case of the Paivascapes Festival in 2011 and the Vougascapes artist residency cycles between 2015 and 2018.

Binaural Nodar announces a new research and creation project “Os Rios da Comunidade” (The Rivers of the Community), a collaboration between its team and the musical group Sax on the road, for the conception of a record and musical/multimedia show dedicated to fourteen rivers of the Viseu Dão Lafões Intermunicipal Community, each corresponding to one of the fourteen municipalities that form the community. The project will run until the end of 2024.

The first phase of the project, to be carried out between August 21 and September 3, will consist of an initial sound and visual mapping of the fourteen chosen rivers, the provisional list of which is as follows:

Aguiar da Beira: Coja river
Carregal do Sal: Cabanas river
Castro Daire: Paiva river
Mangualde: Mondego river
Nelas: Castelo river
Oliveira de Frades: Vouga river
Penalva do Castelo: Carapito river
São Pedro do Sul: Sul river
Santa Comba Dão: Dão river
Sátão: Sátão river
Tondela: Dinha river
Viseu: Pavia river
VIla Nova de Paiva: Mau river
Vouzela: Alfusqueiro river

Credits:

Research coordination: Luís Costa
Artistic coordination: António Manuel Ramos and Dolores Spínola (Sax on the Road)
Research and cataloging team: Ana Margarida Ferreira, Liliana Silva, Luis Costa and Nely Ferreira
Musical creation: António Manuel Ramos and Dolores Spínola (Sax on the Road)
Poetic texts: Luís Costa
Audiovisual editing: Luís Costa
Graphic design: Liliana Silva

Binaural Nodar is a professional cultural organization supported by the Portuguese Government – Culture | General-Directorate for the Arts.