Verde Prato, sweet rebel
Verde Prato, sweet rebel
Text: Manuela Estel / Photos & Videos: Verde Prato
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With Verde Prato, Ana Arsuaga has built a unique, unclassifiable musical universe that resonates throughout Europe.
That’s when an image came to mind. An old poster that had always hung on the walls of her parents’ house in Tolosa. It was for a play her mother had put on when she was little, called Verde Prato. Spontaneously, Ana made it her stage name and rushed to write three songs.
Six years later, “Neskaren Kanta”, one of the improvised tracks from that evening, has racked up almost 2 million plays on Spotify. And the name “Verde Prato” is now appearing on concert halls and festivals across Europe.
This is the paradox of Verde Prato: music born out of discretion, but carried by a voice that is impossible to ignore: a unique project that is both deeply personal and universal in scope.
The path of someone who defies categorisation
Defining Verde Prato’s musical style is a million-dollar question. She herself hesitates, searches and then says with a smile: “eclectic”. And how could it be otherwise? Ana Arsuaga grew up surrounded by eclecticism.
Her mother taught theatre. Her father, a house painter, passed on his passion for books and music. And her aunties, who were pianists, encouraged her to take up the keyboard at an early age. Art in all its forms is omnipresent in the Arsuaga family.
As a child, Ana already felt different. She devoured books, preferred films in their original language and gradually distanced herself from her peers’ tastes. “Tolosa is small. You can quickly become an outsider there. It made me want to leave, to see other places.” Art became a refuge and soon a path in life.
After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the Bilbao School of Fine Arts and co-founded the free-spirited and noisy trio Serpiente with two friends. “We had a blast making music; we didn’t care how it sounded.” The band experimented with their own version of post-punk, inspired by Jayne Casey, Cate Le Bon and Siouxie and the Banshees. “Being a girl band changed everything. There were no expectations. No specific goal. Just the desire to create.”
It was during a Serpiente concert that artist Jon Mantxi spotted her. He invited her to play solo. That was the birth of Verde Prato.
With just the first three songs she played that night, she laid the foundations for a unique and varied universe: “Neskaren Kanta”, a spectral reggaeton, “Mutilaren Kanta”, a spellbinding incantation, and “Galtzaundi”, a traditional song filtered through minimalist electro.
Invitations started pouring in right away. She created prolifically. Concerts followed one after another and, without ever having planned it, Ana Arsuaga took Verde Prato (and the Basque language!) on a journey from Tolosa to Prague, from the Azores to London.
“Her mother later told her that Verde Prato is the title of a fairy tale by Giambattista Basile, in which the princess saves the prince.”
On stage, a complete and committed work
Her mother later told her that Verde Prato is the title of a fairy tale by Giambattista Basile, in which the princess saves the prince. Ana couldn’t have found a better name. From the outset, she has been charting her own course. A radical proposition that draws as much on the heritage of the bertxularis and liturgical chants as on contemporary performance.
At the time, a new artistic wave was already shaking up the Basque Country and inspiring her deeply. Ana cites Mursego in particular: “She played the cello, threw in loops, added electronics… It was powerful, new, it made an impression on me.” Ana comes from the trio Serpiente, where anything goes, so why hold back on her desire to experiment? “I said to myself: if I want to do reggaeton, I’ll do it. If I like flamenco, I’ll slip it into a song.”
Her common thread is her minimalism. Alone on stage, without artifice or accompaniment, she imposes her magnetic presence. A keyboard, looping, and a raw voice that plays with extremes. Almost nothing, and yet a whole world.
While her creativity is spontaneous, almost organic, nothing is left to chance. Not even her clothes. Ana works with a stylist friend to create outfits that defy convention. “I don’t want people to just see a girl singing. I want them to experience a complete project. Something theatrical, aesthetic. Almost a plastic art form.”
The stage is also the setting for a feminist political statement. “I’m a woman who writes her own songs and performs alone on stage. It’s something I wanted to see as a spectator myself.”
The choice of Basque was less deliberate at first. It was natural to write in her mother tongue. “But seeing people all over Europe dancing to my language is a dream come true! Now it’s a choice I’m committed to.”
Verde Prato recorded her latest album, Bizitza Eztia, in Rome with producer Donato Dozzy, a leading figure in minimalist electro. With Italy as a backdrop, she draws on her personal experiences to explore a certain idea of la dolce vita (bizitza eztia in Basque).
“But this sweetness must be for everyone. Otherwise, it’s not really la dolce vita.” Behind the delicate electronic sounds, powerful themes emerge: the need for a more inclusive world, freedom, feminism, and social pressure on women’s bodies.
The album perfectly reflects the three words Ana Arsuaga ultimately chose to describe herself: “Girl. Sweet. Radical.”
