In another one of our Stories from Beato: The Neighborhood Factory Lisbon calls Home, we talk to a Era Jaja Rolim. As a trans person, an artist and a Brazilian immigrant in Portugal for 4 years now, she understands better than most the challenges of integration in a new culture and job market.
Era found her place in Beato, as an artistic director of Palácio do Grilo, a place built by a duque 300 years ago, now turned into a lavishing venue for meals, performances and parties.
Era Jaja Rolim
The way Era came to be our neighbor in Beato is what she calls “an absurdity of the universe”. This Brazilian artist had been working in production for Sonar music festival (which took place in 2021 at Factory Lisbon, among other venues around town), when she got a misterious message on instagram: “Hi, I asked Sonar for your contact because I would like to discuss a job offer”.
Turns out the message was from the owner of Palácio do Grilo, who subsequently invited her to mediate performance practices inside the palace.
Where do we go when we dream?
The project was introduced to Era as something in between gastronomy and performance. Having studied and worked across Latin America and Europe, in fields as different as Pedagogy, Dance and Art History, Era admits to having seen people own the word "performance" in different ways, so she didn't know what to think. “A restaurant is typically a traditional place. Was I gonna have to dress as a carrot and sing some jingle?”, she wondered.
It seemed to Era that the Duke de Lafões himself had inspired this vision: (...) "He wanted to create a place where souls could roam freely and people would be whatever they wanted to be”.
The job turned out to be a lot more interesting than impersonating a vegetable. The owners of Palácio do Grilo wanted to turn it into a museum, a restaurant and a hotel, all of which intertwined by the visuality of theatrical performance. It seemed to Era that the Duke de Lafões himself had inspired this vision: “he designed the landscape more than 300 years ago based on the idea of the ethereal, of where we go when we dream. He wanted to create a place where souls could roam freely and people would be whatever they wanted to be”.
Table for six
Today a group of artists lives on the premises, in a long term artistic residency. Their work is permeable to the architecture and the art on the walls, building from the interferences between their bodies and the objects and humans occupying such space. “Our work is not too choreographed nor indifferent to the people who come to the palace. It considers the entire experience of being here”, Era explains.
As a trans person, an artist and an immigrant in Portugal for three years now, Era understands the challenges other artists have to overcome in order to integrate the arts circuits. “I could hear them talk about not having a place to create and exhibit their art because funding is organized through calls which are often not easy to access and navigate by newcomers”.
Looking to cast a team of six, she decided to invite (...) mostly immigrants, mostly woman, mostly black, some gays, some travestis, some trans, all independent artists (...) working performance for many years.
Looking to cast a team of six, she decided to invite artists who she knew to be in a precarious situation - mostly immigrants, mostly woman, mostly black, some gays, some travestis, some trans, all independent artists who were only getting work in bars for minimum wage and had limited access to artistic work, all of whom had been working performance for many years.
Dancing in the streets
Era didn’t know much about Beato before moving in, but she likes to live here. Its industrial heritage with wide open spaces and warehouses plays a contrast to how quiet and silent the neighborhood can be. “Sometimes I think I’m in some rural village on a sunday. You see no more than two cars go by and listen to the birds sing all day.”
But there’s a lot going on in Beato, and Era knows it. “I do wish we had more communicating channels. I, an artist in Palácio do Grilo, have never been given an excuse to meet the local seamstress or the artists from the drag place down the street. Maybe it’s me, but I still don’t have a mind map of artistic venues or associations”, she admits.
The solution comes in the form of a festival: “we should all get together and do a multidisciplinary arts festival where everyone could show their work. It would be perfect if it could happen on the street, with urban interventions, initiatives for the local schools and for the elderly. And of course, something for young and adult audiences too. It would help us multiply our local network, because too often we make art for the artists".
Lately that’s what's been on her mind. "How can I, as an artist in this community, contribute to other places which have less contact with performative languages or have such contact at a very superficial level?”
A festival? On the streets of Beato? We hear you, Era...
