Enter the theater and build a refuge there. Not to look at the stage from a seat, but to inhabit it. This is the proposal of 'Galactic Refuge', the new piece by the company Azkonatoloza led by Laida Azkona and Txalo Toloza-Fernández. The proposal can be experienced at Mercat de les Flors until this Sunday as a scenic experience designed for all audiences.
It should be noted that the function is part of the series Falla, a long-term project that has explored the relationship between body, nature, and cosmos. Now, with this third piece, the project changes its perspective and opens up to an intergenerational audience. “It is our first piece for a family audience. You can come with children, but you can also come with adults, without this age barrier,” explains Azkona.
From the cosmos to Earth: a shared refuge
After years of research, travels and work with communities from southern Latin America, the new piece focuses on an idea as simple as powerful: the Earth as a refuge. "The motto would be that, after all this journey through the cosmos, planet Earth is our galactic refuge," points out the creator. The piece is built as an invitation to inhabit this refuge collectively.
The public does not observe. Participates. Enters a space that transforms and helps to build it. “It is an immersive piece. There are no stands. We invite to build this refuge and to take a journey through the cosmos,” she summarizes. Precisely, the scene is drawn from lines, gestures, and movements. The performers manipulate the materials, but so does the public. Everything advances like a shared game.
“It’s a very simple and very playful piece. We are more in the language of the story and of poetry,” explains. The result is a journey that combines observation and action, without exposing anyone. “It’s not the typical participation where someone feels exposed. You participate by building, as if you were going camping to make a shelter.” As the space grows, small stories appear. Voices that dialogue, story fragments and conversations that broaden the meaning of the shelter: a place to protect oneself, to imagine or to share.
Thinking the future without forgetting the past
The piece places the audience in a fictional future. “We propose a pact of fiction and say it is June 21 of the year 2599”, details the creator. From this point, the journey reconnects with an essential question: how do we want to inhabit the world. In this sense, the project avoids explicit discourse, but does not renounce a critical gaze. “There is a very simple message: this planet is our only galactic refuge, let's take care of it”, she states. And she adds that the proposal appeals more to fascination than to denunciation: “It is a call to humility before a world we do not control”.
The work with child audiences is not accessory. It has been central to the creative process. The piece has been developed with schools in Poble-sec and other educational spaces, which have allowed testing reactions and rethinking the proposal: “This has been an anthropology of the present. We wanted to understand how children function today.” From this work, key decisions have emerged, such as opting for silence or avoiding dynamics that generate exclusion: “We saw that, if you don't take care of it, the idea of ‘this refuge is mine’ appears. We wanted the opposite: to build something that belongs to everyone.”
A experience that overflows the theatrical format
The result is a piece that breaks with conventional theater. There is no linear narrative nor a clear separation between stage and audience. There is a space to explore. “It’s an invitation to play, to fascination, to experience theater in another way,” he summarizes. And he assures that the audience’s response confirms it: “Whoever comes leaves surprised. The children say ‘I didn’t like it, I loved it’”.
