In Valencian we use a short and very sonorous interjection to say goodbye. But it's not easy to say goodbye, nor the objects, nor of people. It revolves around this chronic human difficulty collected in hundreds of songs AU!, the third creation of a clown that shows how, sometimes, we don't know where we're going when we say goodbye. A suitcase evokes leaving things behind and with it Maria Andrés begins this show that mixes the clown with the theater of objects. The artistic residence from which the piece was born in November of 2024 it developed right after the fateful barrancada del Poio. Irremediably, the villager had started to bake the work while her neighbors from l'Horta Sud and herself were getting rid of a lot of muddy objects. The result has been a piece that you can see in the next edition of Mislata's MAC on Friday 15 of May.
AU! is a candidate for best breakthrough show in the 29th edition of the MAX Performing Arts Awards held in June. You have hopes of passing the cut and becoming a finalist?
The truth is that I think this is very difficult. There are other wonderful candidate shows. Although hope should never be lost, no? I made a show based on the goal of flying, so dreaming the impossible is my specialty. Of course, what I do dream and would like, for me and for all my female colleagues, is to work, have the possibility to tell many times the stories we invent to very diverse audiences and in inhospitable corners of the world. In which this is a little easier, I think that more than one of us would already be awarded.
Valencian companies such as El Pont Flotant are also in the race for prizes, The Malabo or Atirohecho Troupe. The Valencian scene can take off?
I think there is a good crop of artists in Valencia (in and out of that Max race). There is a lot of talent on the periphery of a centralized culture and world, you just have to look (no need scratch massa). We must learn to be proud of our own, sense presume mass, that we already know what artists are like, but do value the work and constancy of those who make culture like a passionate ant carrying a crumb of bread against wind and tide.
In AU! you have the external support of Patricia Pardo in dramaturgy and direction. How does one come to work face-to-face with one of her references?
I have arrived as you arrive at all places: asking. Although to ask one must believe that it deserves the answer (and this, in my case, it also took me a few years). Patrícia has been the gift of this show, certainly. I have learned a lot on an artistic and human level in this process. I, especially, I felt very accompanied and taken care of. Generosity and care in a process of creation and rehearsals (and in life) they go ahead of everything. But it wasn't just that, because Patri's talent shines through his ears. If I look back and see that teenager from the village that I was seeing Commissure on the TAMA stage he thought, with a clarity that hardly characterizes it, "this is what I want to do in life", I smile to have her close to me now. It is so important to have female role models on stage! You have to be able to imagine here, you have to know it's possible and whoever breaks first paves the way.
Which other clowns have been a source of inspiration? Maybe there is a bit of Pepe Viyuela at the beginning of the show?
Maybe there is a bit of a clown in Pepe Viyuela. But yes, and so much so! I do not know, many... as well as first clicks: Leander, Avner the Eccentric…I les dones, where are the women? I am inspired by many artists from many disciplines, many times they have nothing to do with the clown. I am inspired by traveling and seeing how many different ways there are to make art. I am inspired by free people, because they make me want to be.
You are talking about TAMA d'Aldaia, but next to your town you also have the Mostra de Clowns and Clowns in Xirivella from a long time ago 32 years. You have been a regular audience at the show? It helped you in some way to find your vocation?
Certainly! I was three years old when the Mostra de Xirivella was born and I was lucky to have parents who took me to the theater from a very young age. So I'm doubly lucky! On one side, to have parents who did theater when they were young amateur (I still managed to see some number of my father blowing his nose on a clapboard on stage cole) i, on the other hand, to have the Mostra de Xirivella bringing the world closer to home. I have seen clowns and clowns from the other side of the world when I didn't even know what it was to be a clown. I don't know yet.
Pomegranate, Mislata… Then should come the Swedish MIM, no?
Hopefully so! That would almost be like flying :). But don't rule out learning to fly, so... The MIM is a cultural oasis. As if they made me a program a la carte.
Like the rich guests in the movie The exterminating angel from Buñuel, your character wants to leave all the time but can't. Why a play about farewell? to you, personally, it's hard for you to say goodbye?
It costs me my life! It's hard for me to say goodbye and that's why I wanted to talk about it. The work was born looking for a way to tell what needs to be explained and explained to me because I can't stand it, not the other way around. You could say I'm nostalgic for life. I constantly say goodbye to everything: of a hotel room, of a lost sweater, from a person I met at a festival, of a mountain, of a river to which I do not know if I will return... Sometimes I have seen myself saying goodbye even to an ant that I have been looking at for a while. It's not a joke, no. I live very aware of the constant goodbyes and I like everything so much that it takes my life to say goodbye. I'm also at a point in my life where I'm learning to let go of parts of me, some companies, some experiences that I thought defined me. I really want to let go and take off. To celebrate and close so that all the beautiful things that have been waiting in line for several years can come.
As in Fragile i limit, you again ask for public participation in AU! What attracts you to the audience on stage?
I like to have a little company, the truth. I also like to think of the theater or the circus as a space of joint creation and transformation. Imagine the viewer as an active part of the show, is absolutely part of it, because without him where would I end up? I feel more at ease with the idea of all being together telling this story, in the same space, at the same height.
How do you choose them?? It's scary to choose someone who doesn't play within the drama? What do you do in those cases??
Choosing viewers well is not my forte. Get used to thinking wrong at first sight, to the scene and to life, but over the years and with the hours on stage I have learned to choose better. likewise, the possibility of disaster is always there and continues to happen, but I've learned how to play it and laugh and make people laugh even with that failure.
Gesture theater crosses the language barrier and has allowed you to tour countries such as Nepal, Bosnia or Morocco. Drama is more universal, but in comedy the local and personal matter has a lot of weight. For your experience, they laugh at the same things in Morocco as in Xirivella? And a child than an adult?
Mmmm… Yes and no. I think that laughter brings us closer in a very beastly way, very fast. It's almost magic. It is enough to share a laugh or a smile with a stranger because he seems like your second cousin from the village. But it is also true that comedy has a very social component. We tend to laugh at our realities, of our everyday life and sometimes, even, of those things that oppress us. And this context certainly changes if you live in Morocco or Xirivella. Maybe they'll laugh more if I bring out tea instead of wine or dates instead of olives. Maybe they'll laugh more if I try to approach their customs in some way. Despite that, I think we are closer than we think. And the same goes for children and adults. I think they laugh at the same thing, only that the adult needs to remove the formality and gravity from above. A relaxed adult and a child laugh at the same thing.
Are you tired of keeping everything or you know how to get rid of things?
it depends. Some things I like to keep, I like to be like that and value it. Put the memory in something you can touch. Others do think it would be better to learn to detach myself from them. There are things that need to be let go because, but, we won't move to nicer places. I'm learning.
What else are you sick of??
I'm sick of the injustices, of patriarchy, of people’s selfishness, that interests come before values and that I always trip over the same stone.
What do you pack in a suitcase before going on a trip?? What you would never leave behind?
Before almost nothing and now the key to everything. I will be getting older! No matter where I go, I would never leave a notebook and a pencil behind. I always think I'm going to have a wonderful idea that I'm going to jot down or that I'm going to write a travel journal or that, suddenly, I will start drawing and I will discover that I have a hidden passion and I will become a cartoonist. The notebook usually comes home blank, I oblige. I don't know if it's because I'm too romantic in my imagination or because I love living the journey in practice more.
What would you take to a desert island?: a pillow, a typewriter, an umbrella, a radio, a shotgun, a coat or toilet paper?
If only you give me those options, the romantic Maria would tell you that the typewriter. Although if the island is deserted I would have no one to send the letters to, so I stay on the radio, that might save my life. And if I survive, I'll look for someone to write letters to. Note that in general, listening saves more than talking.
Where you would never go back?
Many places I wouldn't even go back to revisit. I would not return to violence. Yeah, I would not return to places where I am not treated with care.
Where they don't want you back?
We should ask others that, but I sense that they match. I mean I wouldn't go back to places they don't want me back. I used to go back and forth, but I'm leaving it, ara ja don't turn.
Finally, we need to talk about the elephant in the room. Your latest show and our magazine have the same name. We should tour together? 😉
Yeah, feels it. I can see that the exclamation was not enough, but i tried. I say yes to the tour together and to everything you propose. If the coincidence has served to arrive at this beautiful interview you gave me, I love the elephants in the room.
