Henrique Artes Theatre Group - Theatre Stripped of Ornaments
Soldiers, bankers, entrepreneurs, university students, and high-school pupils. Among the roughly twenty members that now make up the Henrique Artes Theatre Group, there is room for every profession and life path. By day, they live ordinary lives in Luanda; by night, after long hours of work, they gather to give body and voice to what moves them most — theatre. They still rehearse at the Henrique College, the space where it all began more than two decades ago, with nothing more than a few square metres, a radio, and an immense desire to create.
It was there, back in 2000, that everything started, almost by chance. Flávio Ferrão, then a student, gathered a few classmates to close the school year with a play. The enthusiasm was such that the school’s administration invited him to continue. “I kept doing theatre and, over time, took professional courses to strengthen my foundations — I stopped being a student and became the company’s director,” recalls Ferrão, who still leads the group today.
From that modest student initiative grew one of Angola’s most respected and enduring theatre companies. The Henrique Artes Theatre Group now celebrates over twenty years of uninterrupted activity, with national and international tours and major distinctions, including the National Culture and Arts Award, granted by the President of Angola, and recognition at FESTLIP – the Festival of Portuguese-Language Theatre in Brazil, where the group represented Angola to great acclaim.
Their productions weave together social critique, humour, and poetry — always in a language that is accessible, emotional, and unmistakably Angolan. In recent years, the group has staged plays such as Hotel Komarca, Passageira 640, The Passion of Father José, and Steps Toward Angola’s Independence — the latter taken in 2025 to the United States of America, marking a new chapter in the company’s history.
For many years, the troupe performed only works written by Flávio Ferrão himself, but its repertoire has since expanded to include plays by Mena Abrantes, Victor Guerra, and Victor Hugo Mendes. Despite still lacking a permanent theatre space — often rehearsing in borrowed or improvised venues — Henrique Artes remains faithful to its founding spirit: to make theatre stripped of ornaments, sustained only by emotion, conviction, and love for the art form.
A living proof that in Angola, theatre can still be an act of resistance, of beauty, and of expression — even when the stage is small and the means are few. Because, as Ferrão himself says, “love is the only set we truly need.”
Text: Andreia Barros Ferreira/Redação
Photos: Manuel Teixeira
They rehearse with little more than a few square metres of space, a radio and a great deal of dedication.