**PORTUGAL CONNECTIONS**

During September 2003, Foursight's Artistic Director and Special Projects Co-ordinator visited the Portuguese theatre company Teatro Regional Da Serra Montemuro. TRSM are a predominantly male theatre company based in a tiny village in the Montemuro mountains of Northern Portugal.

TRSM had small informal beginnings in 1990, doing community activities with the local population. The aims of the company were to encourage the local young community to remain in the area and not to migrate to the cities and also to assist inter-generational relations. Today, their brand of exciting, vibrant theatre is performed in the most prestigious venues in the country, including the major urban centres such as Lisbon and Porto. However, the company still strives to achieve its original objective to reach people who would otherwise never have the opportunity of experiencing theatre.

The aim of this initial meeting for the two companies was to explore the different approaches to creating physical theatre and to share ideas between practitioners working within different cultures. At the end of May 2004, Foursight will be returning for a second visit to TRSM for one week. This next stage will involve elements of training and workshops towards a potential future collaboration.

We'll keep you posted.

We've included some images from TRSM's 2002 Programme to give you a taster of their work.