Two decades may sound like little, a lot, or nothing, but in the case of Scene Miriñaque they sound like everything. And it is that 20 years ago, four passionate about the arts started a project that they did not know where it would lead them, but of which they were completely sure. “It was a moment with a very desert theatrical panorama and eager for renewing culture,” says one of its founders, the teacher, co-director and actress Noelia Fernández, to put it in context.
She, along with Joaquín Solanas, Esther Velategui and María José García, opened their “little place” on Sevilla Street, in Santander, to try their luck after leaving the Palace of Festivals: “We were a group that had just finished forming, and both teachers and students knew how to come together to create what was Miriñaque Teatro. We were surprised when the first year we got 80 students, “explains Fernández nostalgically. There they started with one of the weapons they had in their power: innovation. And it turned out well.
“We did productions that affected the youth, with themes such as AIDS or anorexia, and we toured the entire community to show what we were doing … We really wanted to have fun and Cantabria wanted new generations to dare to break the ice in the culture “, reveals the co-director of the company.
Only three years later, in the middle of 2004 and continuing with their renovating aspirations, they decided to re-found themselves as Miriñaque Scene and add to their company and school, an exhibition center that would later be followed by the creation of the room they would call ‘La Miriñaque’ . “As of 2006 we are oriented towards the creation and dissemination of contemporary theater, the investigation of new scenic languages and the miscegenation of different avant-gardes, and that is a little by what we are known today”, indicates Fernández.
Since then, as the founder reveals, they have traveled through all the autonomous communities of Spain, have crossed the pond on several occasions and have performed in dozens of countries. However, when the pandemic arrived a little over a year ago, they had a particularly bad time for being such a “vulnerable” sector. “In culture we are always on the tightrope and depend on subsidies, but we have been fortunate to be able to continue making live art and to be able to adapt to the situation,” he says.
Despite this, he emphasizes that the purpose of Scene Miriñaque is to show that everyone can access the theater: “This type of culture that targets such a specific sector of the population and that has such a high cost does not produce a economic performance to be considered an industry, but it is still necessary to democratize it. ”
But if there is something for which this Santander theater company is recognizable, it is for its attention to the smallest public and, above all, to early childhood, which they refer to as “a very forgotten sector.” They, who have been going to schools and institutes for years to develop projects, insist that the pandemic has made it difficult for everyone to access culture, since, for example, minors have begun to depend solely on their parents “wanting to and can “take you. “Those boys and girls who go to the theater tomorrow will surely be consumers of culture, and those who do not know will be more difficult to engage as an adult,” he asserts.
At the moment, the Miriñaque Scene team looks to the future with optimism despite preferring to live day by day, “something that the pandemic has taught us”, although 2021, the year of their anniversary, is bringing them very good news: ” We have three new productions in very different formats: we have just premiered at the Festival Palace ‘Del otro lado’, a play directed by Blanca del Barrio, then we will do a narrative story with staging called ‘By the good and by the bad ‘, and then we are going to develop a co-production in Uruguay with a grant from Iberoescena, “she enthuses.
So it seems that this company that had to move from Sevilla Street to Isaac Peral due to the need for more space, has a long way to go on the Cantabrian scene. “Because as long as we can move on, we will be here,” concludes Noelia Fernández.
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