The workshop will take place between September and October 2024 and will result in an original show to be presented at Tremor 2025

The result of a partnership between Tremor festival and Arquipélago –  Centro de Artes Contemporâneas, Ciclo is a training programme for musicians, professionals who work in culture, and people who are curious about new practices and trends in the sector, thus continuing the work that both entities have been doing to create new opportunities for empowerment in the region. 

The 2024/2025 edition of Ciclo starts with a training course aimed at artists (professional or non-professional) and people with an interest in the different dimensions of hip hop, from music production to songwriting. It will take place in person at the facilities of Arquipélago –  Centro de Artes Contemporâneas, in Ribeira Grande, Azores, in two different periods: 21st to 23rd September and 19th and 20th October. Candidates will be selected by the programme's director and production team. Preference will be given to people born or living in the Azores. The application period is now closed.

The programme's mentor is the rapper, sound designer, sonic and visual poet Xullaji. With a vast career in national music, he has released (under the name Chullage) three outstanding albums in the national hip hop repertoire: Rapresálias, Rapensar and Rapressão. These albums are, to this day, important portraits of the political and aesthetic intensity of his lyrics and the way he inscribes hip hop in the culture of resistance of the African working class and the diaspora. Exploring spoken word (an area he is especially interested in), he is part of the AKapella47 project, for which he went on to edit Hype and intenCIDADES, two major examples of the intersection between words, political action, and art. In his latest project, Prétu, he explores the fusion of African samples and images with his electronic cosmos and pan-Africanist thinking. Prétu 1 - Xei Di Kor, released in October 2023, was acclaimed by the most relevant national press as one of the best albums of the year. Xullaji is also co-founder of Peles Negras Máscaras Negras - Teatro do Escurecimento, a black community arts collective. He also collaborates with Teatro Griot and has worked with various visual artists and theatre companies, both in Portugal and abroad.

After the training period to be developed as part of Ciclo, the group will carry out a creative residency period to be held in April 2025, during which an original show will be created to be presented as part of Tremor Festival.