LEONOR LAINS Translated
by John D. Godinho
Leonor
is born in an atmosphere dominated by the creaking sounds of old horse-drawn
carriages along the streets of Lourenço Marques and by the quiet activities
of tea leaf harvesting and packing along the banks of the Zambezi River.
She leaves Mozambique in 1950, at the age of three.
In the mountains of Serra da Estrela, in Portugal, she participates
in the traditional folk festivals that celebrate the annual hog slaughter.
At Eastertime she smears her mouth and face with large, colored,
medallion-shaped lollypops with some saint's image stamped on them. The
smells of rice pudding and of soaked earth are still today vivid in her
memory. At age nine she arrives in Lisbon and sees an elevator for the first
time. She
studies at the Liceu Francês. Her
university, though, are the city cafes.
Her teachers are poets, writers and some dream sweepers. She enrolls in the Amateur Musicians Academy and studies with
Francine Benoit, Filipe Louriente and Louis Saguer. She wanders between Lisbon,
Paris and Amsterdam for a while. In 1970, she begins to work with Michel Giacometti and for
seven years does field work and collaborates with Lopes-Graça, musician and
composer. After
the Portuguese Revolution of 1974, her acting career begins.
She performs at the Cascais Experimental Theater, Almada Theater as
well as the Seiva Trupe Theater of Oporto.
In 1982, she teaches music at the elementary and secondary levels.
Between
1990 and 1993, Leonor acts as cultural promoter of musical and theatrical
events for the City of Almada. She
goes back to teaching and to giving acting lessons, works on television
programs and becomes a music critic. She
participates in the project "80 LIVES NOT SNUFFED OUT BY DEATH",
returns to the Amateur Musicians Academy as assistant director and reissues
the periodical Gazeta Musical. Leonor
is the author of the following biography on this site:
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