Lagos, on Portugal's Algarve, is better known for its cliffs and beaches than its performance spaces, but from October 13 to 17 it becomes something different: a city-wide festival built entirely around children and young people as an audience.
Encontros Gymnasium – Performing for Young Audiences returns for its second edition, a biennial event organised by cultural association casaBranca. Everything is free, although you need to register in advance. Performances and workshops spread across five venues, including the Lagos Cultural Centre, the Lagos Youth Centre, the Dr. Júlio Dantas Municipal Library, Anel Verde Park and even a primary school in nearby Bensafrim.
The programme is genuinely varied rather than a token puppet show. Opening day brings Espanto, a theatre-and-music piece by Ana Madureira and Vahan Kerovpyan about a scarecrow and a crow, plus É Bom Mandar?, an interactive show from Formiga Atómica that lets children wrestle with questions of democracy and power. Later in the week there's guitar-backed storytelling from Sérgio Pelágio, a Frida Kahlo performance by Cláudia Gaiolas staged outdoors in Anel Verde Park, a dance piece by choreographer Henrique Furtado Vieira, and film screenings including Agnès Varda's documentary The Gleaners and I and José Miguel Ribeiro's animated As Coisas Lá de Casa, which animates ordinary household objects.
Saturday October 17 is the family-friendly payoff: an Open Day at the Lagos Cultural Centre with performances, workshops and a community lunch at 1.30pm. Highlights include Márcia Lança's Dentro da Cabeça, a playful trip through thoughts and emotions shown twice in the morning; TRRRRR!, a sound workshop where musician João Silva helps eight-to-12-year-olds (and adults) turn everyday objects into electroacoustic instruments; and Beatriz Marques Dias's dance-and-painting session for four-to-seven-year-olds inspired by the Impressionists. Fernando Mota rounds things off with Concerto para uma Árvore, a piece for all ages that builds music from natural materials.
The festival is funded by Portugal's Directorate-General for the Arts and Lagos Municipal Council, and it draws on casaBranca's decade-plus of work with local schools. For families holidaying on the Algarve in mid-October, it's a rare chance to see contemporary Portuguese theatre, dance and film aimed at children — at no cost, in a town where evening entertainment usually means restaurants and beach bars.
Registration details and the full programme are on the Encontros Gymnasium website, with a separate online form for the Open Day. Spaces at free events like this tend to go quickly, so booking early in October is the sensible move.
