Puppets and progression in Azerbaijan

I was contacted by Andrew Jones in the Theatre & Dance team about taking my show, In Suspension, to Baku in Azerbaijan. The whole trip was a British Council initiative, and we did two performances in the Theatre for Young Spectators in Baku. I also gave a talk to a group of invited local artists. The Theatre for Young Spectators is a very elegant building in the centre of Baku. It normally presents work for children and young people. In Suspension uses puppets, but is intended for adults, so we had quite mixed audiences with a wide age range.

Azerbaijan is a very busy country – very much on its way. There's a lot of new development and improvements being made to the infrastructure at the moment. It's a very dynamic place. People were extremely nice – everyone was warm, friendly and helpful all the time. The history of oil production is everywhere. Even our hotel was full of photographs of oil rigs from the end of the nineteenth century. There are oil wells all round Baku, though mostly a little way offshore nowadays. We went to see a field of nodding donkeys squeaking and pumping away less than half an hour from the centre of Baku. In ancient times Baku was called “the city of fire”, I think, so maybe the place was originally considered magical because of the strange black liquid which turned up under the soil there. There’s an important Neolithic site called Qobustan, with an incredible number of ancient rock carvings close to Baku, so there have been people settled there for many thousands of years. Perhaps it was because of the strange geology.

I studied Russian and International Relations at university, and my background is in Cold War studies and the history of the Cold War, so it was a surprise to find a place where Russian is spoken and that evokes so many memories of the Soviet Union, albeit in a modern, forward-looking way. It's very interesting that most people speak Russian there as a second language and for many it seems to be a first language. I found the sense of positive development of things initiated in the Soviet era very refreshing and different from the way Eastern Europe has rushed to try and disassociate itself from its own Soviet past. 

I thought it was a fascinating place, and next time I'll practice my Russian a bit before I go back. Now, I'm heading back to Oxford for a month to work on another piece, called Playing with Crocodiles, which is about neuroscience and the way that we perceive movement. Then I've got some shows in the UK in February, then in April a residency in France and I'm teaching in La Nef in Paris through May.

Stephen Mottram was talking to Eleanor Turney.