This year’s Sanjoaninas theme is “Angra: Your Name is Freedom.” Why are we celebrating the 50th anniversary of April 25 in June in Angra do Heroísmo?
We couldn’t celebrate anything else. April 25th is the most crucial date in Portugal’s history. It ushers in a period of peace and prosperity without any remote parallel in Portugal’s history. It is the most formidable date, endowed with hope and capable of making people dream. From a historical point of view, it is proven to be a date that has transformed. The Azores enjoy an Autonomy that is, on the one hand, a child of April 25 and, on the other, a child of the independence struggles. Even so, they benefit from April 25 in every respect because they are exultantly Portugal. There are only reasons to celebrate April 25 and no reasons to celebrate anything else instead of April 25.

What role did you play in these festivities?
I was challenged to propose the theme, so I proposed the theme and argued in defense of the theme. I’m the author of the march, with Marta Cruz, my wife, and I dance in the official march. In addition, I have a bookstore with a café in the center of the festivities, where the 50th anniversary of April 25 has been celebrated with great fervor and where the Sanjoaninas will also be celebrated. We have six events as part of the official poster and organized another five events outside the official poster, a total of 11 events, all of which were funded exclusively by the participants or by us at the cost of their sacrifice, dedication, and devotion, which is how the life of this bookshop has been made. It’s made up of friends who sing, write and read. I didn’t choose the theme; I proposed the theme, but I don’t think there was any other possible proposal. I don’t think it would occur to anyone to propose a theme other than April 25, which is particularly urgent to celebrate at this time, when Portugal, the Azores, Terceira, and Angra do Heroísmo are showing increasing signs of condescension towards the regime that April 25 brought to an end. Of course, these sectors of society are still very much in the minority, but they are growing, and it’s essential to contain them. We can contain them by celebrating life, which is how Terceira transforms itself significantly. My friend Carlos Enes said the other day that Terceira pays its promises by having festas. It also sensitizes the younger generations by throwing parties, as this year’s Sanjoaninas proves.

Despite these growing movements, the 50th anniversary of April 25 was celebrated very enthusiastically, especially in Lisbon, with a flood of people in the streets. Doesn’t that give a sign of hope for the new generations?
Hope, yes, but I see many citizens and many voters of the new generations fomenting attempts to return to darkness, which is why it’s so important that this year, we celebrate April 25 by also condemning fascism and fascism. A line in this lyric, which seems to have upset some people, says, “two aspiring fascists invest, but were no place for dictatorship”. Apparently, some sectors of Angrense society would prefer to leave fascism alone, but I don’t think it’s time to leave fascism or fascists alone. It’s essential to express our position, and our position, as democrats, is for democracy, freedom, equality between people, and the inclusion of people. And if we look closely, the Sanjoaninas have always been about that because Angra has always been more about that than any other city in the Azores. Angra has traditionally been the city in the Azores that is most open to the world, most open to difference, most open to others, and most curious. Basically, the Sanjoaninas are doing what they have always done and will always do, which is to celebrate what makes the city unique. Angra is a compassionate, inclusive, curious, hospitable city, and it has always been more so than any other Azorean city, even in most Portuguese cities, at least in the Region. When Angra celebrates freedom, the right to be different, equality between people, and fraternity, it celebrates these ideals, which are also the ideals of the French Revolution, by tradition as a tribute to its history.

Can these more serious themes be combined with popular festivals like the Sanjoaninas?
Absolutely. The Azores celebrate the Holy Spirit with bullfights, and Terceira is more than used to celebrating the more serious themes with the greatest effusiveness, joviality, and popularity. There is no doubt that it is precisely among the people and with the language of the people that April 25 dialogues are better than anything else. April 25 belongs in a St. John’s march. It is its place par excellence, I would say.

As well as writing the lyrics for the march, will you parade through the streets of Angra again on St. John’s night?

Marta and I will be there, dancing with each other and singing the verses we wrote. It’s quite a long lyric, what in “sanjoinês” is called a lyric with a lot of Portuguese in it, but one pleasantly surprising thing was that during rehearsals, we quickly realized that we were the people who knew the lyrics the worst by heart. I still get some of the lines wrong sometimes, and most of the marchers made a systematic effort to meet the demands of the lyrics, which were to be very long, and to fit in with the moment of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of April 25. Everyone knows the lyrics well, by heart, something I haven’t seen in other years when the lyrics were frankly shorter, with fewer stanzas and verses. There’s great enthusiasm from the whole march. The costumes by Sílvia Teixeira and Sofia Silva are very eloquent, and the music by Grinoalda Ávila is extraordinary, of great sensitivity, to which Antero Ávila then adds a great mastery of orchestration, for as we all know, he is immensely talented. And Valter Peres’ choreography is genuinely fabulous. It’s the third year we’ve come out, and now we hope to come out again and again unless they don’t want us. And even then, we’ll offer ourselves to all the marches until one accepts us. It’s by far the most joyful, theatrical, and enthusiastic choreography of the three we’ve taken part in. We’re excited. It’s going to be an extraordinary evening.

in Diário Insular, José Lourenço-director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks Luso-American Education Foundation for sponsoring Filamentos by Bruma Publications.