“Ashes on Your Hands”

The play “Cinza Nas Tuas Mãos” (“Ashes On Your Hands”) by the Mozambican theatre group Lareira Artes has been voted the best foreign theatre piece presented in Brazil during the past year.The contest, organized by journalist and theatre critic, Miguel Arcanjo Prado, selected five works presented at theatre festivals in Brazil in 2015, including “Ashes On Your Hands”, “The Seagulll” (Russia), “Tapioca” (Mexico), “La Maldita Vanidad” (Colombia) and “Fuerza Bruta” (Argentina).The winning work was adapted from the text of French writer Laurent Gaudé with staging by Elliot Alex and interpretation by actors Diaz Santana, Lucrezia Noronha and Sergio Mabombo. The play was presented in November last year at Brazil’s Lusophone Theatre Festival.“Cinza Nas Tuas Mãos” essentially criticizes warlords and expresses the solidarity of all who suffer the worldwide scourge, and tells the story of two wartime gravediggers who comply with orders from above to make corpses resulting from the conflict disappear. However, from the rubble there emerges a survivor who sets out to plague them.The play was voted third best foreign theatre play presented in Brazil last year by a group of theatre critics published in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.Since its formation in 2010, Lareira Artes has participated in festivals in Mozambique, Angola, Portugal, Brazil and Macau. The group won the IMPACTO prize at the Brazilian Peripheries Festival for “Cavaqueira do Poste”, which piece also best foreign show at Angola’s Cazenga Festival. It was also the winner of the Revelation prize at the latest edition of the Festilip Portuguese language theatre festival in Brazil.