Taking the 'Thinking Year' to Valencia
Amongst many other exciting things, Gecko are currently in the process of developing a new show. The show is at an early stage that Amit refers to as the ‘Thinking Year’. In September 2019, Amit, along with company members Vanessa, Ryen and Miguel, travelled to Faura, near Valencia, for a residency with HORT Art to develop ideas for the new show, which focuses on themes of migration and climate change. They also had the opportunity to work with a local community chorus and showcase some of the subsequent work they created to the community.
We sat down with Amit to ask him about the trip.
What is the ‘Thinking Year’ in the process of creating a new Gecko show?
The Thinking Year is the part of the process where, essentially, I’m trying to hone-in on the seed, or a couple of seeds, that would be the springboard for an explosion of ideas, images, thoughts, and new creative avenues – or stems. It’s usually a response to a certain feeling that I have about the world, about myself, about things around me. It’s usually a personal idea, but also a societal idea - it usually has to have both of those things that are resonant. And then in the Thinking Year there’ll be residencies, I’ll do a lot of drawing, I’ll write a lot of lists, in the hope that by the end of that year I’ll have got some quite serious starting points for the Writing Year.
What was the purpose of your trip to Valencia?
This was a classic intensive residency in which I had the opportunity to solely think about one thing, which is pretty rare. That’s the great thing about this trip to Faura, near Valencia, because it was like a total magnifying glass, total focus. A small company of great creative people in a fabulous studio, in a very different place, where there’s no distractions. In a way, the value of the opportunity is that it’s such a special thing that you don’t want to waste a second. It means you invest even more into trying to get the best out of it. It’s an intensive week’s writing.
Why did you want to try working with a community chorus?
This is a show about the human migration facet of what it is to be human. What I mean by that is, if we take the notion that, ultimately, we have all migrated at some point in our lineage, then the notion of having a lot of people onstage with complex, sometimes interwoven, migration paths and stories seems like something that’s provocative and evocative. This is where the thought process starts. I think maybe also I’ve always thought that there’s something about that, because Gecko is so resonant with what it is to be human, and humanity. The idea that you arrive somewhere, and you get to engage with a broad dissection of local people just fits and feels right. Such a rare thing that you can do when you go to a venue is actually engage with quite a diverse cross-section of that local community. And actually, I’m quite scared and fearful that theatre becomes a place where just the privileged white middle-classes get to come and enjoy something that you’ve spent a long time working on. It’s actually probably the most negative aspect for me about theatre. So this is a short-circuiting of that – you work with a community group, they bring their friends and family, and you change the demographic of the audience a bit. But it’s also incredibly practically hard to pull off, given that we tour all our shows for five years or more.
What did you learn from the trip?
I suppose, simplistically put, another chunk of stuff, a couple of metaphors that I hadn’t quite landed on before. That to me is gold, if I can hit a couple of points where I go “oh yeah, that’s what this feels like, that’s where we are at the moment.” Another big thing I’m really interested in within all of this, and worried about like so many people, is the climate disaster. But what does that mean in relation to migration? And what’s the play of that in terms of metaphor? And I landed a few things there which was great. It was a provider of very important time to try and locate those things and develop deeper relationships with some of the performers of went, and to test out a few images. It was gold!