Asturies, de los mios amores…

(or the one where we went to Spain for Climate Theatre Camp 2.0)

Dawn explodes over Hartshill, my eyes always sticky before ten. I’ve never been a morning person, I’m the candlelight, moon drenched kind of creative not the daybreak go getter.

I’m in a van, with five other artists, about to travel the long way, not over, as has become standard in recent time, but through.

Hi, I’m Martin, you may remember me from that 24-hour bus ride to Berlin, or maybe as that idiot that fell from the ceiling during Lost Post Office, or for you old school B Arts heads, that semi naked bloke under the bin bags with a machete. In this context, I’m Martin the B Arts Youth Engagement Manager and Theatre Maker and these five artists are my motley crew, a little Anne Bonny, and a little Nikki Sixx, I guess, well maybe not but it sounded clever. They’re made up of Richard, Tasha, Abby, Hannah, and Maria, you’ll meet those guys later but for now the main character in this story is the road. One thousand, one hundred and eighty-six miles of road to be exact, that paves the way from the heart of the potteries to our final destination, the city of Langreo, somewhere south of the Cantabrian sea.  

Our aim is to connect with collaborators from Sala4Teatro and Asoc Los Glayus (representing Asturias, Spain) Laolalta (representing Chisinau, Moldova) and our old pals Artistania (representing Berlin, Germany) but that connection is still two days away, we’ve got to get there first. Getting there is easier said than done, the journey will take us along the western frontier of mainland Europe, the ancient provinces of Normandy, Brittany, and Aquitaine, skirting the Bay of Biscay, dodging through the mountains of the Basque Country and Cantabria.

First, we have to make it out of the UK, Odysseus had to navigate past Scylla and Charybdis, we’ve got the M6 outside Birmingham and post Brexit Dover to negotiate. Luckily our monsters are in mild humour today and we make it on to the English Channel, or La Manche depending on who you ask, with little difficulty. It’s here that we face our first real challenge, the ferry is sailing into thirty mile per hour winds and eighty percent of the passengers have just done a big sick.  

A little later than expected and with our stomachs barely intact we land at Calais, before nightfall we aim to reach Nantes, the national bathtub, once famous as the location of a mass drowning of royalists during the revolution, to sleep. The idea is a simple one, the route seems straightforward, through Rouen, there’s only one issue we can’t actually drive through Rouen due to an emission zone we’d missed in the planning stage and now the long straight motorways have to be exchanged for winding country lanes though medieval villages. Here Tasha gets her first bit of stage time, as immediately in front of us a car clips a dog in the road and leaves the scene.

Tasha runs to the injured dog sheltering it from, the now near torrential rainfall, thanks to Tasha and a little of Richard’s French skills they manage to flag down help and return le petit chien to it’s owners. Time is rapidly escaping us and we’re yet to realise our detour to dodge Rouen has added hours to our journey. We then choose to drive thirty minutes in the wrong direction, as is tradition at this stage and is entirely intentional. Eventually we arrive in Nantes way past our intended bedtimes, broken. We keep our fingers, toes and cigarette filters crossed that tomorrow is a new day.

Tomorrow is indeed a new day, and that day is today, we intend to make it to Bordeaux before lunch to gather bread and meats and cheese to fuel the Spanish leg of our journey, it’s tricky eating on the road as French services are relatively lacking in anything but the basics, most are glorified petrol stations. It’s around this time I begin to realise Bordeaux is merely Birmingham but with more wine, as we hit our first traffic jam since the latter and crawl round the ring road with mouths full of charcuterie. The wind and the rain catch up with us here.

Torrential, hammering it down, sodden, we Brits have plenty of words for heavy rain but this is a different animal, the winds hit 40kph as we break for the Spanish border, but this is the fun part, every second is filled with ooooos, awe and wows as we race past Biarritz and cross over into Spain, immediately to our right the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean and straight ahead the towering mountains of San Sebastian and the faded industrial glory of Bilbao and Santander then the twisting roads through the mountains of Asturias, the air began to truly taste of freedom. This section passes without any major hiccups and before we know it we arrive at our accommodation in the village of Lada on the perimeter of Langreo, where we are welcomed by Mery, our host and alongside Claire and Kos, one of the masterminds of this project.

Right, apologies, I know that bit was long, and it’s taken me the best part of an essay to get here but the next bit will be about theatre I promise.  Our pals from Sala4Teatro entertain us with sketches they’ve developed, the funniest involves two industrial painters falling in love behind the back of their foreman. I’ve never been here before, but the room is mostly full of familiar faces from previous adventures. Before we have chance to settle, we are whipped away by a section of the Asturias contingent to one of my favourites, the provincial nightclub, for free pour drinks and dancing to Spanish pop songs.

Right, back to the theatre stuff, the next few days are chocked full, I and the other facilitators take turns hosting and sharing and leading theatre games and exploration activities designed to crack open comfort zones and ignite new neural pathways between the participants. We attempt to provoke them into creating new theatrical interventions around climate change that will be displayed in less than a week’s time in Langreo’s central square, on market day none the less. There’s no better place to test new work than the belly of a beast full of busy shoppers.

 We teach them Brecht, they teach us Moldovan wedding dances, every day has a workshop to call it’s own. Some people are sewing, I’m drinking Astrella Galicia and watching but the pub is calling. I’ve heard a rumour that Asturias is the Spanish cider capital, and a local bloke has taken us under his wing in a tiny local bar, his name is Nani, and the bar owner goes by the name of Danny. Danny and Nani are the finest of hosts in the Xenia sense, we’re gifted shots and rounds and welcomed into their fold.

 The cider is complicated, not in nose or palette but in method of consumption. The cider must be drank a specific way and anything other is sacrilege. First you raise the bottle to the ceiling in one hand, lowering the glass to the floor and a small amount of cider, maybe a double in old money, is poured the entire length of your body cascading into the glass and onto the bar floor. Then the cider is consumed in one sip leaving only a small amount in the bottom that is poured away to sterilise the rim of the glass. We drink with them for many hours across the week. The open arms of a stranger is one of life’s great pleasures.

 Another day, they blur into one quite quickly, begins with a bus ride, a bus ride through the winding paths that scale a mountain, or a very big hill, I’m not sure of the definitions amongst the dramatic landscape. Audible squeals echo throughout the bus, Hannah and Abby are looking out the window in mild horror as the coach driver expertly leads us up the precarious trail. As we reach our destination, we realise we are deep in the woodland. Here we develop site specific interventions, Tasha robs a bank (of twigs) and Richard gallivants adorned with branch antlers (as usual). It is hard to escape the majesty of the setting. The return journey is a little less terrifying now the driver has proved his ability. The group (minus the hardened Asturians) let out a relieved sigh.  

A different day begins with one of my favourite phrases, “Martin, we’re going down a mine today” I love mines, a lot, I think it’s in the genes. We first tour around a former steel works, formerly the main employer of Langreo, we hear the history of the city and can’t help but draw parallels with our own beloved Stoke on Trent, our guide is rich with knowledge and insight as well as having the keys to a fascinating workers’ house we explore but the most exciting bit is on the horizon. We take a tiny train deep into the darkness of the old mine, an old friend Vlad from the Ukrainian mining town of Dobropillya once told us something along the lines of

“You’ll never know the light until you have been in the darkness of the mines” and this held true. We were captivated by the tool marks in the rock face and dampness of the air. Right back to theatre…

 Our interventions on the market square are looming and for now we must create them, I take a morning off to recharge and return to the group split into four sections, each have chosen a concept to explore, I believe they are as follows.

1.         Meat Reduction

2.         Power Imbalances amongst polluters

3.         Personal Responsibility

4.         Just Transition

 From team B Arts, Hannah has chosen the Meat Reduction team but our Maria, Abby, Tasha and Richard are exploring Power imbalances, being the closest to my heart and also striking a chord of relevancy for us Brits who feel we maybe have a little more power than we deserve to be wielding, I choose to join them and help develop the world of Mañana Limitada, a shadowy polluter operating on the fringes of reality. Also on the books of ML are our co-conspirators Claire, the bohemian leader of the Artistania contingent, Ханья from Belarus (forgive me if my Cyrillic has let me down) and Rocio from right here in Langreo. Richard is making masks, unsurprisingly, here is where I’d usually explain the content of the intervention that was developed but that would spoil the surprise, we’ll get to that tomorrow but first we’re off to Gijon to feel the Cantabrian Sea brush against our ankles and relax after a hard day making theatre.

 Today is the day, we carry our masks, and our bin bags and our contracts to the centre of the market, the first two interventions have finished and now it’s our time to shine, cyclic, churning carnival music pumps from our trolley. We are all adorned in identical masks, Richard smokes a cardboard cigar and sneers menacingly at the group, Mañana Limitada is his company and we are merely cogs in the machine. Claire and Ханья are my fellow workers together we drag a trolley piled with bagged rubbish, to the beat of the music and to the crack of Richards whip, Tasha and Abby are from PR they are passing out contracts to the populace “by reading this you agree to host Mañana Limitada’s rubbish for a period of 1000 years” Maria is our photographer documenting this beautiful rubbish we are kindly gifting on the locality. Rocio is ML’s finest influencer, tasked with making damn sure everyone believes this rubbish is the coolest thing out there, a Bin-fluencer, she stages photo ops and selfie shots with the public. We drag our wares through the walkways of the market, people stop and film the strange ritual until finally, unable to resist being centre of attention for a second, I collapse in the centre of the square under the pile of rubbish, Tasha and the PR team green wash me, with spray-paint, and leave me below the heaving mass of waste. People clap, I continue to lie there until I am helped out, they clap some more, I like it when they clap.

That night we do karaoke and open mic, the next day we journey home, I will save you from those bits, you’ve persevered enough with my ramblings… we will sleep now.

Good night

Martin