Special International Women’s Day performances at Assembly Roxy
7 – 9 March 2024
Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh (Roxy Upstairs)
In an exciting Scottish comeback, Edinburgh-based multilingual Fronteiras Theatre Lab (fronteira meaning ‘border’ in Portuguese) is set to bring their intimate physical theatre show La Niña Barro to Assembly Roxy this spring for an exciting three day run, 7 – 9 March 2024, coinciding with International Women’s Day.
An ongoing and cumulative creative project first formed in 2013, this run marks a decade since La Niña Barro’s original premier at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The performance will feature the original crew and cast, including Director and Producer Flavia D’Avila and lead actress Elizabeth Sogorb as the clay woman.
Created from introspective poems written by Spanish writer Marta Massé, La Niña Barro explores the experience and feelings of a woman made from mud; probing how she feels about and relates to herself, earth, nature, life, and love through a raw and intimate mix of skilled Mbira (traditional Zimbabwean thumb piano) music by artist and performer Alexandra Rodes, moving spoken word, and deeply felt physical theatre.
A performance enacted fully in the nude and spoken in the Spanish language, La Niña Barro creates a sensitive, impactful experience for audiences – asking us to embrace and reflect on what makes us human as the clay woman bears her soul and self.
Director and Producer Flavia D’Avila said: ‘This is a deeply personal, heartfelt project for all of us. Not only are we celebrating 10 years since our Niña first came into the world, but there have been many changes and losses for us all along the way – and it’s all embedded there, in the work itself.
‘What I find really interesting about La Niña Barro is that it affects people in completely unique ways depending on where they are in their lives. We’re really looking forward to giving her the run she deserves in Edinburgh.’
Actor Elizabeth Sogorb said: ‘I sat down to re-read Marta’s original poems in preparation for this run the other day and I couldn’t stop crying.
“It was a rare grey, rainy day in Alicante and they just really hit me… So many memories stirred inside me; everything we have experienced with this show, all the conversations we’ve had. I can’t wait to get her under my skin again.’
Artist and musical performer Alexandra Rodes said: ‘What I do is different from Eli, because she’s an actor. I’m an artist by training and trade – so I see my performance in La Niña Barro as more ‘action’ than acting, if that makes sense.
“I have memories from the past few years, but we have all changed as a team so much and I just don’t know what the performance will feel like this time. I won’t know until I have her [Eli] there – flesh and clay, to shape with my bare hands…’
Since 2014, La Niña Barro has toured around Spain, Brazil, Uruguay, and the USA, winning the Impact Award at the 5th Small-Scale Theatre Festival in Miami and making the cover of specialist dance and physical theatre magazine Godoff in Madrid.
Past Praise for La Niña Barro
“It is easy to speak of life and the wonders of human nature with trite, meaningless and fluffy words. It is harder but far more effective to show these things, as La Niña Barro does.” (A Younger Theatre)
“A magical experience to watch” (AllEdinburghTheatre)