João Branco

Biography

João Branco was born in Paris, the capital of France to the Portuguese musician José Mario Branco and programmer Isabel Alves Costa.

He is a doctor in arts, communication and culture at the University of Algarve, he took a maximum rank of Very Good, Praised and Distinction. A master in scientific arts, specialized in staging with a rank of very good. Licensed in Protection of Heritage and cultural organization with a rank of very good.

He started his scene activities in 1984 with the playwright João Paulo Seara Cardoso. In 1987, he performed his first theatrical with at Liceu Camões and was invited by the Student's Association. In 1990, he performed his first play Quem me dera ser onda by the Angolan writer Mário Rui at D. Maria II Secondary School in Lisbon.

After his move to Cape Verde

He moved to Mindelo in the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde in 1991.

From 1993, he began his theatrical course and invited to the Portuguese Cultural Centre (CCP - Centro Cultural Português) and made fourteen editions. He founded the CCP Theatrical Group of MIndelo in 1993, as playwright and artistic director. The group has made over fifty theatrical specials, with texts by Capeverdean authors such as Arménio Vieira, Germano Almeida, Caplan Neves and Mário Lúcio Soura, with the universal dramaturgy with Camus, Oscar Wilde, Garcia Lorca, William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Molière, Beckett, Muller, Alfonso Castelão and some more. He commemorated his 50th play he performed in 2013, The Tempest, a Creole adaptation of a play by Shakespeare.

He was invited in 1994 to take charge of responsibility of all of the Camões Institute Artistic Activity at the Portuguese Cultural Center and Mindelo (Porto Grande) Polo. In 2003, he became director of the same cultural center. He was one of the founders of the Mindelo International Theatrical Festival in 1995, the festival considered the most important event of African theater. From 1996 to 2013, he was the first president of Mindelact. He is the author of the most important edited work on Capeverdean theater, "Theatre Nation - History of Theatre in Cape Verde", written in 2004 by the National Library of Cape Verde. A work which was awarded by the Capeverdean Association of Writers and considered the start of investigative literature in Cape Verde. For some time since 2013, at the Academy of Letters of Cape Verde. Author of the Capeverdean component, the book “O teatro dos Sete Povos Lusófonos (The Book of Seven Lusophony Peoples), written with the São Paulo Cultural Center in Brazil. In 2003, he also edited the book 10 Years in Theater (10 anos de teatro), referenced the history of the GTCCPM. He founded a review in 1997 titled Mindelact - Theatre in Review", which was the main responsibility of the work. He also wrote articles in the journals A Nação, Horizonte and Cidadão and in newspapers such as A Semana and the Portuguese Expresso.

He received the Theatrical Merit Award in 2010 as well as the Lusophony Theatrical Merit Award, attributed by the Luso-Brazilian Foundation on the Development of the Portuguese Language in Recife in 1996. In 1999, he received the Micadinaia Cultural Prize, brought by the Comparative Academic Studies of S. Vicente. He was decorated in 2010 by the president of the Republic of Cape Verde with First Class of the Order of Vulcan medal, for contributing he has been giving to Cape Verdean culture, in general scientific arts, in particular, for which was for more considerate the largest exponents in the Cape Verde islands. In June 2014, he was received the Sabino Évora Award of Excellence at the SalEncena International Festival in the island of Sal.

Personal life

He later married and had three daughters, Laura Costa Branco (age 17), Inês Costa Branco (age 9) and Isabel Costa Branco.

As playwright

• 1991: Quem me dera ser Onda, novel by Mário Rui - performed with GTCCPM
• 1993: Fome de 47 - unknown author - performed with GTCCPM
• 1993: A Estátua e Etc. - collective text - performed with GTCPPM
• 1994: Our Fisherman (Nos Pescadores) - collective text - performed with GTCCPM
• 1994: Chico - collective text - performed with GTCCPM
• 1995: Gin Tonic Surrealist - partly by Mário Henrique Leiria - performed with GTCCPM
• 1996: Adaptation of a book by Oscar Wilde - performed with GTCCPM
• 1997: Bad Love a play by himself - performed with GTCCPM - performed with GTCCPM
• 1997 and 2007: A play, an adaptation of a book by Garcia Lorca - performed with GTCCPM
• 1998: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare - performed with GTCCPM
• 1999: Os dois irmãos, adaptation of a novel by Germano Almeida - performed with GTCCPM
• 1999: Figa Canhota, collective text - performed with GTCCPM
• 1999: Catchupa, collective text - performed with GTCCPM
• 2000: Agravos de um Artista, adaptation of a short story by Germano Almeida - performed with GTCCPM
• 2001: Count of Abranhos, adaption of a book by Eça de Queirós - performed with GTCCPM
• 2001; Adão e as Sete Pretas de Fuligem, by Mário Lúcio Sousa, within the scope of the Porto 2011 Cultural Capital of Europe, performed in Porto and in Lisbon
• 2002: Salon by Mário Lúcio Sousa
• 2003: King Lear by William Shakespeare, co-produced with Atelier Teatrakácia
• 2004: Tertúlia, based on the poems
• 2005: High Seas - a poem by Mrozek and Eugénio Tavares
• 2006: "Women of Lajinha" ("Mulheres na Lajinha"), a part of the novel O mar na Lajinha by Germano Almeida
• 2007: A Caderneta, by Baltasar Lopes da Silva
• 2009: The Fire (No Inferno), based on a book by Arménio Vieira
• 2009: O Jardim do Dr. Gordner Brickers, by Caplan Neves
• 2011: Closer by Patrick Marber, Projecto Aquarium, Lisbon, Portugal
• 2012: Stand Up Comedy Pará Moss, collective texts with Trupe Pará (Pará Troop)
• 2012: Theory of Silence (Teorema do Silêncio) by Caplan Neves
• 2012: As Mindelenses (The Mindelians, sometimes as Gramportians) - collective texts with Trupe Pará (Pará Troop)
• 2013: Neverland - book adaptation of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie with Project KCena in Salvador de Bahìa, Brazil
• 2013: Sete Pequenas Peça, Para Sete Grandes Crises - collective text with Trupe Pará (Pará Troop)
• 2013: The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• 2014: The Lesson, by Eugène Ionesco with Trupe Pará (Pará Troop)
• 2015: Do-Eu with the Free University of Vila Velha Theater in Salvador de Bahía, Brazil
• 2015: Morabesta, with Teatro 15 Project - Mindelo
• 2016 - Strangers by José Luis Peixoto, co-produced with Teatro Rivoli in Porto, Portugal

Assistant playwright

• 1999 - Cloun Creolus Dei - a play by Miguel Seabra
• 2013 - Cloun City - a play by Janaína Alves with the troop Para Moss in Cape Verde

As an actor

• Fome de 47 (1993)
• A Estátua e Etc. (1993)
• Gin Tonic Surrealist (1995)
• Romeo and Juliet (1998)
• Cloun Creolus Dei (1999-2008)
• Count of Abranhos (2001)
• Adão e as Sete Pretas de Fuligem (2002)
• Alice (2012)
• Theory of Silence (2013)
• The Tempest (2013)