Nha Casa Nha Bairro [My Home, My Neighbour] is a community project that is trying to research, document and share the multiculturalism and complexity of the social fabric of the borough of Chelas in Lisbon, based on an understanding of the concepts of community and memory. The first findings were presented at Biblioteca de Marvila on October 26, with a children’s theatre play and a short version of a documentary currently in development.

The march of Saint Anthony starts the show, instantly positioning us in time and space: we are in contemporary Lisbon, surrounded by a well-known Portuguese tradition; the children marching are Portuguese. They carry a flag made from the flags of countries and peoples that, despite their distance, are part of them and this place: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and the Romani people. In a matter of minutes, the steady and measured gestures of the march are morphed into energetic motions, wrapping the show in a vibrant and infectious sound. Lights illuminate the audience, and I find out later that it’s funaná – music from Cape Verde. Lights shine on the audience and, in response, the stage holds out an invitation: the crowd occupies the stage, the stage the audience, and the actors dance with family and friends within a spontaneous celebration that joins two places that do not traditionally cross paths. The magical sight of them fused together immediately sends me into the imagination of a different world – one where borders would be defined by needs, where well-being and hospitality would be the priority over bureaucratic arguments of fictional lines and, for example, international pacts that tear families apart.  And, there, that brief exception was sufficient to give comfort and courage to the children facing a large audience for the first time, and the confidence to carry on into the unknown. Simultaneously, that congregation – a great celebration between fiction and documentary – brought us an initial answer, devoid of words, to the question this work raises: what is community? The spoken performance then starts, where the children look for answers that they had already been able to find through the drawings brought to the stage: “It’s about us all being together”, “playing in the street”, “it’s a group of friends”, “a group of people with the same goal”, “it’s like a birthday party, where we make new friends to play with, and the adults have a good time”.

The setting abounds in symbolism, echoing the present and the collective memory of Chelas. A travel suitcase and a clock represent landmarks in its history: 1974-1975, 1980-1983, 2009-2012, and 2024. Among “buildings of all colours”, children play football in the street and a group of friends barbecue a Guinean recipe called Galinha Cafriela. The characters are lilac and faceless.

A constant dialectic between generations – the younger ones on stage and the older ones on screen – explores the notion of memory by telling the stories of Chelas families, collected in their homes, on the street and at Centro Maximiliano Kolbe. The theatrical script was written by the youngsters and children from these conversations, with the help of tutors in the fields of Theatre, Philosophy and Human Rights. The actors were chosen following a call for entries aimed at young people living in the neighbourhood, aged between 8 and 14. Food is central among the memories recalled: the smell of cachupa and muamba, the spiciness of pastries with the devil inside, they all trigger family and home memories. People speak of those who have already passed away, of houses that have been destroyed, of services that no longer exist. Nearly fifty years have passed since the first residents came to live in the newly built neighbourhood; a 510-hectare chunk of town planned in the 1960s to house 55.000 inhabitants. So much has changed along the way. Stories multiply about the fear-free neighbourhood, the family atmosphere, the encounters, the endless joy and mutual help. While there are also old stories of rivalries between neighbourhoods, as has always been the case in Lisbon’s central boroughs, the overriding feeling is one of belonging – a sensation common to virtually all people and all places that they refuse to imagine outside of their context: they do not want to live anywhere else. Chelas is home. “We were born here”.

The very name “Chelas”, which has been falling off the map – now everything is just Marvila – has become a symbol of identity resistance: bureaucratic reasoning tries to hide the reality, and the residents reply by setting up an association that cries “Chelas é o Sítio” [Chelas is the Place], a proud statement that can be seen all over the neighbourhood, in clearly visible spots.

The performance ends with one of the young women singing the song Chelas by Sara Correia, a fado musician from the borough, who made sure to use her fame to put Chelas back on the map. Again in line with the beginning of the show, this song reveals the diversity of identities, where a tradition from Lisbon’s working-class neighbourhoods, such as fado, is combined with the urban expression of a so-called social housing block: “I have fado in my voice and trainers on my feet”. Sara Correia’s play challenges the audience with the social pressures to hide their roots, but concludes by stating that “I’m not from any other place, I’m from Chelas”. This statement reveals the urgency of honouring and affirming identities, especially in contexts where marginalisation and stigma lead to dehumanisation.

By sheer happenstance, while Nha Casa Nha Bairro was being presented, thousands of people were marching down Avenida da Liberdade as part of a demonstration organised by the Vida Justa association in the wake of Odair Moniz’s death. Born in Cape Verde and living in Bairro do Zambujal, Odair was fatally shot by the Portuguese police in Cova da Moura on October 21. Nha Casa Nha Bairro is an initiative of Associação AfriCandé and Sociedade das Primas, both of which were founded in 2023. AfriCandé is a tribute to Bruno Candé, the deadly victim of a racial hate crime in a Moscavide street on July 25, 2020. A former resident of Chelas, Bruno Candé was the actor who, in 2014, led a theatre company, Casa Conveniente run by Mónica Calle, to Zona J, the centre of a community undermined by prejudice and marginalisation. Sociedade das Primas’ objective is to fight prejudice through artistic performances aimed at promoting inclusion and empathy. Both seem to believe in the transformational capacity of art as an educational medium and its potential to inspire social change.

This past week, Portugal has been talking about “neighbourhoods” – areas that were born out of public policies that, over many years, have tried to tackle housing crises such as the one we are experiencing today. Many of those initiatives, as in the case of Chelas, were the result of exceptional collaborations between political decisions, implementing strategies and public management, groundbreaking urban planning, architecture, engineering and landscaping proposals, and a sociological approach to mapping needs, preferences and ways of life. These were all collective efforts to provide decent, affordable housing for the “largest number”. We are aware that many of these endeavours met unexpected challenges and fell short of some of the initial expectations. These last few days, the smears of judgement and discrimination, coming from those who have never entered these areas, have been matched by civil movements and associations that, with active political involvement, are dedicated to improving life in these places. This is where community theatre proves its worth: not only as a space for education and reflection for the young people taking part, allowing them to grow through the collective process that inevitably defines theatre, but also as a real-life mirror and a tool of resistance that changes public perception and can, in the long term, help bring about fairer policies. Initiatives like Nha Casa Nha Bairro are key to this process, providing the general public with an accurate representation of the boroughs and fighting ignorance and hatred. This is theatre that, by humanising, becomes political – an act of resistance that calls on us to imagine and build a city that is more inclusive and attentive to the complexity which defines it.

Nha Casa Nha Bairro is a project supported by the “+Cultura” programme of the Commission for Regional Development and Coordination of Lisbon and Tagus Valley (@ccdrlvt). It was headed by Beatriz Teodósio (Theatre), Ivânia Vera-Cruz (Philosophy) and Martinho Filipe (Documentary). They worked collaboratively on all aspects. The music was written by Henrique Rosário, the set design by Inês Rochato and the light design by Bee Barros. On stage, Bea, Enzo, Maria, Valentina, Vitória, Nayala, Noa, Yasmin and Ivânia give voice to Chelas.