Cwmni Theatr Arad Goch has been creating and presenting theatre for young audiences in Wales, in Welsh and English, since 1989.
International collaboration and touring have always been an important element of the company’s work: in 1996 we organised the first AGOR DRYSAU-OPENING DOORS Wales International Festival of Theatre for Young Audiences; in 1996 we did our first international tour to perform in Denmark and Ireland, in 1997 to the USA and Canada, and in 1998 to Singapore.
We know many of the practicalities and the ins-and-outs of international touring; we know it’s sometimes a slog; and we know that it’s a way of meeting, sharing and of being able to see your own work in a different context. But our most important audiences are the children and young people of Wales: we perform to or provide participatory activities to some 25,000 people a year.
We are constantly searching, experimenting and creating new ways of new work. In 2010 we started on a new, long-term project (i) to look at different ways of creating new, psychological, participatory theatre for very young children by (ii) using found objects: the trilogy of work has used rocks and sand, wood and leaves, and soft materials.
Last Autumn, one of the trilogy, BLE MAE’R DAIL YN HEDFAN / WHERE THE LEAVES BLOW which uses wood and leaves, toured for four weeks in France and will do another 6 week tour in France in 2017.
Day 1 in the Arad Goch Van in France with Ffion Wyn Bowen, Aaron Davies and Jeremy Turner.
The start of the long journey: Aberystwyth is the centre of the world so is far from everywhere and we’re used to travelling long distances. We often hear colleagues in Cardiff refusing to come to meetings in Mid Wales because it’s a long journey: Oh come off it!!
Drive across Wales and England, under the Eurotunnel (Thatcher’s only useful legacy) only to reach our hotel in Béthune after the restaurant has closed, so nothing for it but a McD. Oh, the disappointment!
Day 2 in the Arad Goch Van in France.
Follow the motorways across North France – Normandy, the Somme and gradually into the Champagne area; we’ve driven this route twice already this year to perform in festivals in Epinal and Dijon – so we’re starting to recognise the best food-and-fuel-stops; good weather and good driving but Aaron had a bit of a shock when he had to negotiate the Péage and ask for a receipt – in French. This will be Aaron’s debut in WHERE THE LEAVES BLOW/ LÀ OÙ VOLENT LES FEUILLES as he learned the part for this tour which opens in France before, eventually, returning to tour in Wales again. The role was originally played by Gethin Evans (who performed it in Wales, Russia and Tunisia) then Mark Roberts (who performed it in Wales, South Korea, Catalonia and France). Aaron is working with the very experienced Ffion Wyn Bowen – who helped research and create the show and has done all the tours. Ffion did part of the driving today but otherwise spent most of the day watching films on her laptop in the back seat of the van – quite a few films! The last part of the journey took us off the motorway and along the small country road high into the Jura region of North-East France to Hôtel Lacuzon in Moirans-en-Montagne, with enough time for a drink on the square, a quick French lesson for Ffion and Aaron and great food with a very warm welcome in the hotel’s restaurant. Moirans-en-Montagne is a small, quiet town in the wooded hills with a lot of toy factories.
Day 3 in the Arad Goch Van in France.
A Sunday morning stroll through the town, or is it a village, to find the Salle de Fêtes where we’ll be performing; then to the lake – a huge like a mirror on the top of a mountain. Coffee in a restaurant high above the lake before returning to the Salle de Fêtes to meet Paul and Toni, our jolly, cool, helpful technicians for the week. Much of the set and all the props for the show are fresh leaves, wood, branches, seed-pods, pine cones, wild flowers and moss and as we are not allowed to transport fresh organic material across borders our technical rider stipulates that the local tour or festival organisers have to find it for us: so Toni and Paul have been into the forest collecting bagsful of stuff for us. In each tour this has been a great way to get to know local people – we’ve met carpenters, farmers and foresters in different countries. The set was in, up and lit in two hours – merci Paul and Toni. Another quick French lesson over an aperitif before another very warm welcome in the restaurant. Ready for 2 performances tomorrow – excited!
Day 4 in the Arad Goch Van in France.
Early start to check-out of the hotel. The village/town is much busier today – parents taking their children to the local schools: I wonder how many of these we’ll see again in a couple of hours in the theatre? As I walked from the hotel to the van a number of children greeted me ‘Bonjour, monsieur’; that doesn’t happen very often in the UK any more.
The Salle de Fêtes in Moirans-en-Montagne is wonderful: a modern, tastefully designed building with a big multi-purpose function room and a large well-equipped theatre. The organisers of our tour, www.cotecour.fr – many thanks to them, promote a whole, year-round programme of arts events in this rural area. We’ve performed this show in many big foreign festivalsin Russia, South Korea, Tunisia, Catalonia and France but this is the first time, outside Wales, for us to tour to a number of small communities. In the past this was a major feature of theatre in Wales with many touring companies passing each other in their vans on their way to the next gigs in small towns and villages at the invitation of local organisations and clubs. But now, with more money being spent on large scale arts events in arts centres, community theatre in Wales is very thinly spread – with only Arad Goch and Theatr Bara Caws continuing to tour regularly to perform in community venues. Shame. I’m glad to see the trend continuing in France with the funding authorities’ recognizing the importance of the arts being presented close to the people for whom it’s made.
Seeing performances of our own work in another country, culture or language enables us to see it differently. In Russia some people saw WHERE THE LEAVES BLOW s a story about conflict; in Tunisia it was seen as a story of reconciliation. Now, with so many physical and political barriers being created to restrict the movement of ‘foreigners’ I read our show anew as a play about refugees and local people trying to understand each other in order to find new ways of co-existing. In one of the scenes in WHERE THE LEAVES BLOW, Pegi, one of the characters, builds a small wall to stop the other character, Deri; the response from the young audience is mixed: some, instinctively, wanting one character to defend her territory against the other; others regretting that their playful relationship has ended: and both sides trying to understand the other’s views.
In one of today’s performances a little boy started crying as the characters responded suspiciously to each other: I suppose that he could sense the tension and conflict – and didn’t want to see more.
As part of the performance the audience gets to help create and decorate a new home for the characters; this becomes 20 minutes of creative play and imaginative construction with nothing more than leaves, twigs, and off-cuts of wood. Wonderful to watch!
Two performances, strike the set, get-out and drive higher still to Saint Claude – a town wedged into the ragged folds of the Jura mountains.
Day 5 in the Arad Goch Van in France.
Drive to Molignes, a small tiny village up in the hills. Our Jurassic technicians, Paul and Toni, had allowed more than enough time for the get-in, fit-up and lighting so with nothing else to do in the village – i.e. nothing – the actors had a welcome relaxing hour in the sun before the first show. The performance this afternoon was beautiful to watch: the children were lively and made a narrative for the story as it happened. We really enjoy hearing them discussing what they see – sometimes anticipating something, sometimes trying to rationalise an emotion or the character’s behaviour, sometimes accusing before regretting that they’d snitched on one of the characters – but that’s how life is: their sympathies moved like a pendulum between one character and the other. The constructions and decorations they created today at the end of the performance was fantastic (the audience is invited to help the characters decorate the .new house’ with leaves amd wood); despite the fact that there are 70 children in a confined space, they are always intuitively careful of each other and have a great natural special awareness. About an hour after the show one of the teachers returned; she really wanted to talk to us about the show and to know more about how to book it for children with special educational needs. She described the performance as ‘très poetique’. I was chuffed! It’s always good to talk to teachers who see the creative, personal development, and educational potential of our work.
Day 6 in the Arad Goch Van in France.
No need to do a get-in today so time to pack before leaving the hotel and driving to the second performance in Molignes.
Another lovely performance by Ffion and Aaron – as fresh as ever as the interaction with each audience ensuring that the show continues to grow. There’s a strong, sometimes frightening psychological strand running through the play about conflict, selfishness, innocence, alienation; but the children can deal with it: they observe, react, advise, analyse, comment – and grow. At the end of the show, when the children are invited to ‘build’ the new home I usually just observe them and study their ways of working; today however I stepped in to help a couple of the quite shy ones to join in by offering them some wood and leaves so that they could work quietly on their own; before long they were totally engrossed – as was I.
A quick get-out and then drive up, up, up and up again to the high lands of the Jura. A really bendy road: let no-one complain again about the Llandysul to Pencader road (although this road, with its gorgeous scenery, was far more interesting than Pencader – sorry Pencader, nothing personal)!
Arrive at Les Rousses, easy get-in to the wonderful, lovely, modern, local hall (why don’t we build more local venues in Wales rather than overspend on ‘prestigious’ urban and city arts centres?!?!) before a rare hour-off to explore this chic mountain village with its wooden buildings.
Check into Le Gai Pinson looking out onto the far mountains. In my room there are a large double bed and bunk beds with bed covers embroidered with ski-ing teddy bears – very tempting. Supper with Paul, one of our technicians, and a good chance to get to chat over a glass or two (although we had to explain that the Welsh are not English: he understand fully now!)
There’s a very high mountain in the distance.
Day 7 in the Arad Goch Van in France.
Another fine performance this morning. The children were quiet to start with but, one by one, each of them found something which appealed or to which they could relate and which drew them in to the emotion of the play. This is a play for 3- 8 years olds – but with BIG emotions. There’s not much language in WHERE THE LEAVES BLOW and every movement, mannerism and sound by the characters is important. By 10 minutes into the performance all the audience were totally engaged and engrossed – and the building and decorating at the end was beautiful. I notice a group of boys, about 7 of them, who instinctively started to collaborate as a team with no need for discussion: some collected, some arranged, some observed and suggested: fantastic!
Jérôme, one of the directors of Côté Cour who organised our tour, came to see the performance. He’d booked us for the tour straight after seeing it in Dijon in March: he enjoyed it again – phew. And over a cup of good coffee he started discussing inviting us back for another tour in 2017 or 2018. I wonder if travelling to perform in France and other EU countries will be as easy after the stupid Brexit decision.
Then, this afternoon – to the mountains! I hadn’t brought my walking boots or stick ( in my spare time at home I’m walking the Wales Coastal Path) , so some purchases were necessary in the very nice local shops before setting out to walk up one of the highest mountains in the Jura. A long climb: Aaron and Ffion were well ahead of me as I went at a more ‘mature’ pace; the view at the top was worth it, across Lake Geneva, with views of France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. A picnic of very fresh, homemade, local Comté bought in a small cheese shop in the village and rustic bread before the walk back down. And Aaron and I had to quench our thirst on local beer before a meeting to discuss tomorrow’s work. As Ffion says ‘Braf ein byd, bois’ – ‘It’s a good life, boys’.
Day 8 in the Arad Goch Van in France.
It’s been a great week performing to 500 children and their teachers in small mountain villages in north-east France.
Here we performed in French and English. Great respect to Ffion Wyn Bowen who created the character of Pegi and who’s learned parts of the script in Russian, Korean, Arabic, Catalan, French and, of course, in Welsh and English. Big congratulation too to Aaron Davies for taking over the role and making his own version of Deri.
It’s still a pleasure and a revelation each time I watch the show. In the last performance in Les Rousses I saw one little boy sitting with his mouth wide open in amazement for ten minutes before giving a huge smile as Pegi talked about ‘le mouton dansant et l’arc en ciel’ – the ’dancing sheep and the rainbow’.
Within the hour it takes to perform the show we and the audience create a new world, an alternative world of enjoyment and play and creating – with leaves, wood and a basketful of imagination turning into cakes, houses, a car, a brush, a soldier, a chick, a mouse, a runway, a nest and, when the characters fall-out, a wall to break their friendship.
And there’s an emotional journey too: contentment, new hope, insecurity, defensiveness, selfishness, challenge, conflict, attack, disappointment, loneliness, reconciliation and friendship. We hope that each member of the audience sees, somewhere in the story, a little piece of themselves. Creating a mirror of experience and opening the door of the imagination is Arad Goch’s work.
A number of times this week teachers have come to me at the end of the performance to share their amazement at how our work has caused such a creative response from their pupils. Give children a basket full of wood and leaves, a bit of inspiration and enough freedom and they’ll create a world full of hope.
This part of the tour has ended for me. Simon Lovatt, Arad Goch’s Technical Manager has arrived to take over so that I can return to Aber to see another of Arad Goch’s productions, KING HIT/Y GLEC, co-produced with Zeal Theatre from Australia and performed by Llyr Edwards and Rhodri Sion. Ffion, Aaron and Simon will continue the tour in France. I’ll see them next, and lots of old friends and colleagues, in Mallorca in the wonderful Fiet Sa Xerxa, where we’ll perform OES RHAID I MI DDEFFRO / DO I HAVE TO WAKE in Catalan.
This international work doesn’t happen easily. It’s come about because of the Arts Council of Wales faith and investment in Cwmni Theatr Arad Goch, Wales Arts International’s support for the show’s first foreign tour to Russia and four years work by Arad Goch promoting, discussing, negotiating and selling our wares in order to open an international market. But it’s so important for Wales to put our culture out there alongside other languages and cultures. And we enjoy it too!