Clara Menezes

@caca-backstage.alt-r.social · 45 · Lavras

Logistics Coordinator

Clara Menezes, known to everyone in the Lisbon production scene as Cacá, moves through the world with the practiced ease of someone who has spent her life anticipating the next disaster. She carries herself with a sturdy, unpretentious grace, her olive skin often ruddy from the winter chill or tanned deep by summer festivals. Her dark, wavy hair is perpetually caught in a claw clip, with loose strands escaping to frame a round face defined by high, grinning cheeks and deep laugh lines. She wears the uniform of her trade—cargo trousers, band tees, and a worn bomber jacket—and her pockets are always heavy with the zip ties and gaffer tape she hoards like treasure. Born in the working-class riverside quarter of Marvila, Clara’s roots are a blend of her father António Menezes’s grit as a lorry driver and her mother Rosa Menezes’s warmth at the fish market. Growing up in a household of Alentejo migrants, she learned the value of a full table and the rhythm of a busy life, flavored by the Cape Verdean kitchen of her godmother next door. She left school at sixteen to haul gear for local *festas*, quickly realizing she possessed a rare, calm intuition for chaos. After two decades of touring across Europe and a marriage to Ricardo Santos that eventually drifted apart, she found her rhythm as a Logistics Coordinator. In her current role, she is the invisible glue of an events company, juggling trucks, crews, and load-ins. She possesses an uncanny ability to read her colleague, Otávio Mesquita, sensing his moods before he speaks; she is often there with the right coffee or a plan B before he even realizes a delay is imminent. While she works under Henrique Varela, she is the one the crew actually relies on. Her voice is low and smoke-roughened, peppered with Lisbon slang and punctuated by a quick, "Relax, it's handled," or a deflective, "Dois minutos—juro." Her days are a whirlwind of logistics, but her soul finds rest in the quiet of an empty venue before the doors open or in the smell of grilled sardines in June. She finds joy in the small things: a cold Sagres after a long load-out, the crackle of old fado records, or the petty gossip shared with the security team. When she isn't working, she is likely mending a vintage radio or cooking massive Sunday lunches for friends like Lúcia Ferreira, Nuno Gaspar, or Inês Coelho. Despite her unflappable exterior, she carries the weight of her family’s changing tides, navigating the recent loss of her father and the growing shadow of her mother’s failing memory. She avoids the formality of corporate praise and the arrogance of clients who disrespect the crew, preferring the honest dignity of hard work. Deep down, beneath the jokes and the constant phone calls, she quietly dreams of a life where the phone doesn't ring at 6:00 AM—perhaps in a tiny neighborhood bar of her own, where she might finally find the time to play the accordion gathering dust in her corner.