ABOUT GECKO
Gecko’s Artistic Director Amit Lahav explains what Gecko is and does and the origins of the company.
Q. What is Gecko?
Amit Lahav: It’s an organisation that believes in quality and believes in relationships.
Q. How did Gecko start?
Amit Lahav: In 2000, I was working with a number of really exciting theatre practitioners and theatre creators (David Glass, Lindsay Kemp, Steven Berkoff, Ken Campbell). I was working with these extraordinary people but something in me wasn’t fulfilled - I wanted to start making my own work, and I started to have a lot of ideas in the studio with other directors. At some point I crossed over a line; I knew I had to begin. I met a wonderful performer called Al Nedjari. We were both working with the David Glass Ensemble and I asked him if he wanted to start making work in the studio. So, we began. And ever since then, 15 years ago, I’ve been making work; I’ve been experimenting, I’ve been exploring. And it really started from that moment.
Q. What does Gecko make?
Amit Lahav: Gecko makes physical and visual theatre. I work with contemporary dancers, very physical actors, circus performers. I work with people who are extraordinary physically and emotionally, I work with an extraordinary creative team, and we make what one might describe also as a kind of ‘total theatre’, where everything is used - everything is possible in that physical and visual language. It’s a place and a style where words are not the central storyteller - that is something that happens visually and sonically.
It’s very important with a Gecko show to have a central idea. This central idea usually is something that has enormous metaphorical potential. It’s usually a very rich theme, in which people individually could interpret their own personal voyage through that.
I would say that another sort of ‘DNA aspect’ of Gecko is education. Relationships, learning, sharing, listening, developing - these are central tools to the world of Gecko. So when we go into an environment like a school or a university, all we have to do is play around with those central ideas and this becomes something that is fundamentally fascinating to people that are learning.
Q. Where is Gecko now?
Amit Lahav: The company has become much more sophisticated in its relationships, in that we have a bigger pool of people who care about the company from the inside, a bigger pool of people that understand those fundamental ideas and who completely believe in it and completely own it. So, it’s becoming an ensemble and a collective of people that really believe in that.