Centro Cultural Vila Flor managed to turn a local territorial intervention plan into an action of national and international scale. The program devised to mark this remarkable journey — one that has decisively shaped the artistic and cultural landscape of the country — reaffirms, once again, the presence of artists and audiences as a primary relationship within a constantly evolving society.

Manta, which has become a case study in longevity, celebration, and the imagination of songs no one will ever forget, opens this program and proposes an important connection between generations of artists and their audiences. That thread of dialogue between what happens in Guimarães and the world will be felt in all its grandeur in the anniversary performance “Carnación”, where two major creators — Rocío Molina and Niño de Elche — are joined on stage by three musicians and a local choir of 16 people. A work whose poetics transcend time and space, paving the way for the universal condition that CCVF represents.

That same grand stage will be filled, the next day, with “Bailar em Casa” and the spontaneity of a collective body that will make CCVF a meeting place that brings more and more people together with each year of activity.

On Friday, Ricardo Toscano, one of the leading figures in national jazz, brings to the small auditorium stage his reinterpretation of “A Love Supreme”, John Coltrane’s seminal masterpiece, which turns 60 this year. Here we evoke a piece of art that never lost sight of the future — and jazz as a powerful and inseparable element of this beautiful story.

This intensity will take us back out to the lawn on Saturday, with the trendsetting force of Branko and his irresistible ability to infect us with his live music. It’s a new generation growing up, surrounded by a vast array of aesthetic possibilities — and CCVF is becoming their meeting point too.

This long and inclusive celebration will culminate on Sunday with “Atlas Guimarães”, where 100 people from the region become a performative body, led by Ana Borralho and João Galante, allowing us to recall Joseph Beuys’ powerful maxim: “Every human being is an artist, a free being, called to participate in the transformation and reshaping of the conditions, thinking, and structures that shape and inform our lives.”

20 years of peak representation, of dreaming, expression, and affirmation of a place of freedom — achieved through the arts and culture. This program is about the future, and all the forces that push humanity back onto a grand path.

Rui Torrinha