“Every saudade is a transparent capsule, one that both seals and reveals what can no longer be seen—what has been left behind, yet continues to be preserved within the heart.” — Gilberto Gil

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Saudade is a knot tightly bound to the past, a rib of the present. It is also a gaze turned toward the future, toward what does not yet exist—or perhaps never will. It is the ability to feel life through every pore of the skin, learning to recognize the true value of everything that surrounds us.

Saudade is a swing between absence and presence. An atmosphere, a state of mind, shaped by the infinite power of images.

In exploring how this feeling has found artistic expression, I delved into the poetics of Fernando Pessoa and his great aesthetic invention: the creation of heteronyms. Inspired by the writer’s four principal literary personas, four dancers embody distinct heteronyms, each endowed with an autonomous identity.

Each of them has encountered and explored her own intimate form of saudade, then brought it into dialogue with those of the others.

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With this work, I sought to explore a unique emotional experience—one that can be lived both alone and together.

A creation inhabited by absence and longing, by anguish and tenderness.