Ana Borralho & João Galante

Ana Borralho & João Galante met while studying visual arts at Ar.Co. They were regular collaborators, both as actors and creators, with the theatre group Olho. Partners since 2002, their work has been presented in international festivals in Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Scotland, Brazil, Germany, Austria, Japan, Italy, Estonia and the United Arab Emirates.

They are founding members of the band of non-musicians Jimmie Durham and the cultural association casaBranca. They are currently preparing, with casaBranca, the International Festival of Contemporary Art – Verão Azul – in the Algarve. They live and work between Lisbon and Lagos (Algarve).

« João Galante & Ana Borralho must not only be regarded as a duo of artists, but as an actual couple, an essential feature to understand their work. A duo implies, or at least, admits a conjugation of forces, while in this couple such conjugation turns into one. It is not purposeless that we never see them performing face to face. The face-to-face of Galante- Borralho stands for a couple facing an audience. Even in ‘No Body Never Mind 001’, the audience surrounded them; Galante faced half of the audience while Borralho faced the other. Just as in family portraits, they do not look at each other – they look at us. Here lies one of the reasons why the male and the female elements are simultaneously revealed and inverted in their pieces.

The performers do not operate on the field of dichotomy, but concentrate on the unified symbol. This is not a mask game nor a game of knowing whom is who. The work of Galante-Borralho is not two-in-one, but a unity separated in two bodies. The identification of the one implies the iconography comprehended by the other. No obverse without reverse.» 

— Portrait of Ana Borralho and João Galante by Rui Catalão, in LAB11/REAL’s program, 2005

Read the interview Ana Borralho in Les Inrockuptibles, January 23,2015

Read the interview with Ana Borralho & João Galante, in Théâtral Magazine, September – October 2014