João Garcia Miguel (João Miguel Osório de Castro Garcia dos Santos, born in Lisbon, 1961) is a Portuguese theater director, playwright, visual artist and performer. He began his career in the 1990s and is generally characterized as a postdramatic theatre artist. His artistic performances have been described as "hybrid theater asserting an alternative concept of globalization, establishing an invigorating line of work, between the spectacle of society and the society of spectacle". One of the most visible and relevant aspects of Garcia Miguel's theatrical work is the way he reworks classic texts of European theater through disruption and innovation, using interactive technologies. Special Nothing/Especial Nada (2003, with Anton Skrzypiciel and Miguel Borges) presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival was considered by The Herald as "a fabulous blast" and "the inspired springboard for a fascinating window into creative processes and what constitutes 'art'". Burgher King Lear (2006, also interpreted by Skrzypiciel and Borges) was selected as one of the best 2006 Portuguese performances and described as one of the most accomplished and intelligent deconstructions of a classical theater text recently staged, achieving success in Spain, where it was awarded the FAD Sebastià Gash 2008 Prize (Barcelona).
Artistic activity
Garcia Miguel started his professional artistic activity between the late '80s and early '90s while studying at FBAUL-Lisbon Faculty of Fine Arts. He became involved as a founder and participant in many art collectives – exploring artistic areas such as painting, installation and performance.
He is one of the founders of the experimental group Canibalismo Cósmico that creates performances and installations. He was involved in the foundation of Lisbon's ZDB Art Gallery. Between 1991 and 2002 he directed the Theater Association OLHO (Eye). This company has been considered as a fundamental landmark in the renovation of the theatrical language of the late twentieth century in Portugal.
In 2003 Garcia Miguel started working as an artistic director, theater director, actor and artist. He founded an artistic and cultural venue in Lisbon called Espaço do Urso e dos Anjos (The Bear and the Angels Venue). In 2008 he was appointed Artistic Director of Teatro-Cine de Torres Vedras, a theater owned by the municipality of Torres Vedras 40 minutes away from Lisbon center. Garcia Miguel is also affiliated in the Actor's Center, in Rome, Italy.
Garcia Miguel's main artistic project is the rewriting and reinterpretation of classic texts and biographies, including Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Miguel de Cervantes, Anton Chekhov, Jean Genet, Peter Handke, Fernando Pessoa, Shakespeare, Sophocles, August Strindberg, Gertrude Stein, Andy Warhol and Virginia Woolf, in addition to the production of original texts.
Garcia Miguel has collaborated with artists and performers such as Andres Beladiez, Alberto Lopes, Anton Skrypiciel, Carlos Pimenta, Chema Leon, Clara Andermatt], Custodia Calego, Edgar Pêra, Francisco Rocha, Lucia Sigalho, Luis Guerra, João Fiadeiro, João Brites, Michael Margotta, Miguel Borges, Miguel Moreira, Nuno Cardoso, Rui Gato, Rui Horta, Sara Ribeiro, Steve Bird and Steve Denton.
His work has been exhibited in France, England, Wales, Germany, Senegal, Norway and Spain. Since 1995 Garcia Miguel has regularly presented his work in the most important theatre venues of the country: Centro Cultural de Belém – CCB (1995, 2000, 2008, 2010), Teatro Nacional São João /PONTI Festival, Teatro Carlos Alberto (1999, 2005, 2006, 2010), Teatro Rivoli (2001), ACARTE/ Centro de Arte Moderna]/FCG (2002, 2003), Nacional Theatre D. Maria II/Teatro da Politécnica (2007), Teatro Maria Matos (2009), Teatro A Comuna (2009), Culturgest (2010), amongst many others. He regularly participates in National and International Festivals such as Festival Internacional de Almada, Festival A8, P.O.N.T.I. in Porto, Citemor in Montemor-o-Velho, Festival Les Bernardines (2002, 2004), Marseille, Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Festival de Almagro, Festival AltVigo, MadFeria de Madrid, among others.