by Al Orange

I have had the joy of working with Tangled Feet for sixteen years, and there’s an inside joke about me being the company’s multi-tool as I have undertaken so many different tasks within our productions.  I think all of us who have been part of this journey for a long time, have become multi-tools, needing to adapt to the changes that have been thrown at us. Changes in government policy, social attitudes, the cost of living crisis, global tensions, the pandemic and of course, climate change.  Many of us have undergone big changes in our personal life too; illness, grief, accidents, injuries, mental health, parenthood, ageing.  Life changing events and processes that have meant we have to adapt to continue thinking, working, being creative, and thriving as opposed to surviving.

Deep Adaptation is a project that attempts to address all of these changes and the effects they have on us, both personal and societal.  And what we can do to meet this challenges.  Big, right?  At times it has been an overwhelming process, and we have had to work out how to deal with the process as we are undergoing the process.  We have all had to dig deep, and we have all had to step away at some point, but one thing we have discovered through our work is that time is precious, not in the usual understanding of that phrase, as in we have to cram as much as possible into the shortest possible amount of time in the way that theatre often works, often to the cost of the people working in it.  But that time itself is precious, and we need time for reflection, for process, for absorption, for being.  We need to be able to go away and come back again.  All artists need stimulation, information, inspiration, and research, but giving ourselves time and space to absorb and reflect make this process stronger.  Deep Adaptation is a project that puts the value back into time, into slowness, into care.

For eleven of those beautiful Tangled Feet years, I have been living in the south of Spain, closer to Africa than to northern Europe.  Which has meant a lot of travel.  A lot of flying.  It is something I have thought about a lot in my attempts to make my personal practice more sustainable, but the pressure of time and economics robs most us of the choice of an alternative.  When I was invited to take part in a week long Deep Adaption Research and Development Residency at Lamledra Barns in Cornwall this summer, I jumped at the chance.  I had already missed the last one I was invited to due to one of those life changing events we talked about earlier, so I was really looking forward to taking part.  I was however, not in Spain, but staying with family for a month on rural France.  This gave me both a challenge and an opportunity - how do I get there?

I wanted to explore the options of a different way to travel, using land and sea instead of flying.  So I took the time to research the route - Lavacourt to Caen by train, Caen to Portsmouth by sea, Portsmouth to St Austell by train.  It would take some personal commitment on my part, two days to travel each way instead of one, paying for hotels that were not included in my travel allowance, but I felt it was the right thing to do as it fit in with the ethos of the project. It would allow me to actively explore the way I travelled as part of the process. It would allow me to arrive in a more relaxed and contemplative way.  Being so far from a major transport hub, a day’s travel by train and air would be massively long and stressful, something I had to avoid with my still vulnerable body.  Travelling by Eurostar was prohibitively expensive at short notice.  So what started as an idea, quickly changed into just the most sensible and practical way to go.  It became part of my Deep Adaptation practice.

In Deep Adaptation we often talk about learning from the way we used to do things, learning from the knowledge of the past.  The morning of day one started in a simple way.  A little ferry trip across the Seine to go to market, buying cheeses and honey for my trip, and the chance to say goodbye to friends and family over a coffee and a croissant.  Back across the river for lunch, and then a car ride to the station at Évreux, 40 kilometres away courtesy of my father in law. 

The day was sunny and calm, and as I waited for my train, I thought about how much more peaceful it was than the hassle of crossing Paris and the fluorescent lighting, crowds and queues and rampant capitalism of the airport.  Another joy of slow travel is that is allows you to experience new places that you wouldn’t otherwise visit.  Instead of scrolling on my phone, that evening I was able to visit the lovely city of Caen, then had the time to go for a run on the beach at Ouistreham, before sampling a typical normandy meal of galette and local cider.

Next day I caught an early ferry.  There is something about being at sea which encourages contemplation.  The vastness and power of the ocean, the  weight of the water is something that has come up time and time again when we are generating material for Deep Adaptation, so it felt right to spend some time with it on the way there.

The train journey from Portsmouth to St Austell is quite a long one, six hours with changes, but it does cross some beautiful landscape, especially in Devon where the track travels right next to the sea.  Finally, after a taxi ride with an ‘interesting’ driver, I arrived at Gorran Haven to be welcomed by the rest of the team with fish and chips on the beach, a thoroughly marine centred day.

We had an incredible week at the residency, with good company, beautiful weather, home cooked food, and lots of research and discovery.  Being away from the normal distractions of life can be really fruitful for creative practice, and it was well worth the journey from France.  On our final night at the barns we were gifted with the most beautiful full moon, and we shared a collective moment with it watching the reflection over the waves from the top of the cliff. It was a moment I think all of us will treasure for a long time.  A collective encounter with nature, which is another of the themes that has arisen from our practice.  But soon enough it was time to travel back and after a final morning of contemplation on the weeks work, we set off on our way.

However, slow travel is not always as ideal as it sounds, and the journey home provided levels of stress I was hoping to avoid.  My original plan would have had me in Portsmouth in time to have a meal and a full night’s sleep before my early start for the ferry in the morning.  We arrived at the station in good time, but whilst at the station, I discovered that one of the legs of my journey had been cancelled, with no trains leaving from Westbury that night.  Wrangling with my train app, I found a different route, going via Reading and then slightly doubling back on myself, only to find out as we were approaching Reading, that those connections too had been cancelled.  Apparently there was chaos all over the South West, and I ended up having to go all the way into London, change stations via the tube, and get another train back out to Portsmouth.  It was already 11pm when I eventually settled into the quiet carriage on that final train, only for about 60 excitable Italian teenagers on an exchange trip to flood the carriage at the last minute.  

Another one of the themes that arose during the week was how the absurd, and extreme humour was a useful tool in dealing with topics and events that can be overwhelming in our work.  I sent a text the the Deep Adaptation group the next day saying ‘Hope you all enjoyed my durational art performance “Nothing is Certain Anymore” in partnership with Great Western Railways.’  A joke to keep my spirits up, whilst I made my way home, but also to make a point.  If we are to encourage sustainable slow travel, we have to make it affordable and accessible to everyone.  My rail travel in the UK was the most expensive and chaotic part of my trip.  Imagine if I had been a wheelchair user, blind, or had additional needs to understand transport apps, if I was Deaf and unable to explain my bizarre detour to the ticket man at Waterloo station, if I had not been able to adapt to the chaos, or had been too ill to bear the additional stress and lack of sleep?  

I missed most of my sea journey on the way back, trying to catch up on some sleep, but I did manage to have a meal on board in a restaurant with responsible environmental practices, making some of the changes we need to see in transport happen. I was tired and glad to be going home.  

When I realised I could get an earlier train forn the last leg of my journey, I was happy to pay the extra ten euros to take it, just so I could see my wife an hour earlier.  So despite the chaos would I do it again?  Definitely.  It was an experience that enhanced the quality of my work, and it was a journey that gave me something, instead of just draining me.  There were no direct flights back home from France to Spain, but instead of taking two flights, we took one flight to Madrid, spending a lovely afternoon eating real food, and enjoying the city, before taking the train back home. 

Slow travel is something I would like to do more often.  An adventure.  I once had a flight cancelled after working in Kosovo, and had to take buses across three Balkan countries to reach my destination.  The things I saw and the people I interacted with just made me want to go back there as soon as I could.  I would never have seen them otherwise.  I’d love to travel that way all the way from Andalusia to the UK one day.  Who knows, maybe next time?

Al Orange