Episode 1.2
Interview with Alicia Laguna, by Stephanie García on April 29, 2020
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Stephanie (S): Our interviewee in this episode, is a performing artist, curator, manager, and producer. Alicia Laguna is originally from San Luis Potosí, Mexico. She graduated from the University of Nuevo León, was supported by a FONCA Study Abroad Scholarship to study at the National Circus School in Paris, studied at the Ecole de Mime Corporel Dramatique in London and later at the Ecole de Mime in Montreal. She has also taken courses with directors such as Luis de Tavira, Ludwik Margules, and José Luis Ibáñez. She began as an actress in plays in Monterrey working with directors Julián Guajardo, Sergio García, and Hernán Galindo. She is co-founder and artistic co-director of Teatro Línea de Sombra (TLS) with Jorge A. Vargas. This company is one of the most emblematic in the landscape of Mexican theater. It has made a variety of different types of live performances and has established collaborations with groups such as Mime Omnibus from Montreal or Akhe Group from Russia. In the last ten (10) years of the company’s creation, she has also been artistic co-director, manager, producer of the creations of TLS and coordinator of the international projects; which have toured nationally and have been presented in more than 40 international festivals in 20 different countries. TLS organizes the international theater meeting the ‘Encuentro Internacional de Teatro del Cuerpo’ that has taken place every year in the City of Queretaro, MX, and she is currently curator and executive producer of the ‘Transversales’ meeting. She has acted in films, most notable being the feature film ‘Norteado’, under the direction of Rigoberto Perezcano where she is the leading character from a story of migrants in the city of Tijuana. Her performance in this film earned her the The Black Pearl Award for Best Actress at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in 2009.
S: Alicia, thank you very much for joining us. Um, welcome to the, “Here and There: conversations, conversations with contemporary art artists from Mexico and the USA”, we are very happy that you accepted this invitation, and well, now, I gave an introduction about who you are. That you are an artist who is working in Mexico, but we want to ask you. Who is Alicia Laguna? In your own words.
Alicia (A): Ay, ay, ay… this one, where do I start? You sent like, a whole battery of questions, lots of questions. But, well, from the outset, I am someone who is not from CDMX (Mexico City). Like many artists, and people in general, who live in this enormous city, I come from the country. I come from San Luis Potosí, from the Huasteca Potosina region. Specifically, from a town called Ciudad Valles, which is no longer a little town, it is a city. This um, and well, I left there, like many people, because there were no more possibilities to study past high school. I’ll tell you about a long time ago, I went in the 80s, this, to the capital of San Luis Potosí. And from there, I moved like many Potosinos, me and other people from the area, towards the City of Monterrey. It was like a destination, that, uh, for some reason, was attractive. I think on the one hand, It was Monterrey Tech at the high level of studies in general, in many majors, that, many people went to. And I really had to do with a kind of chance, of… indecision as we all do, of finishing high school and saying, “and now what do I do?” So this one, well, uh, I’m going to Monterrey for a simple reason, that, after thinking about it, talking to my parents, I don’t know whether to go to study history, anthropology, or theater. No? At that time, since I was a child, the theater had been with me. It had been a big, big, big part of life, from the standpoint of family trips. Especially, my dad, took us to Guanajuato and we always saw the works presented there by the University, the typical ones, that, to-date, they are presented in Guanajuato, ‘Entremés’, ‘Pasos’, to-date. And I said, “Ay! I kind of want to do that, right?” I’m talking about me as a girl, a teenager. And… well, there was a history degree at the University of Nuevo León. And well, like that is going to have something to do with it, according to me. And I went to study History. And after a few semesters, I don’t remember, four (4) semesters of history perhaps, ehhh, they had opened, started the school of Performing Arts at the University of Nuevo León east. And then I started studying in Performing Arts. I had been in both focuses for a while. But there comes a time when you say, “no, I’m done, I’ll stay with the Theater.”
S: Hard to keep both, right?
A: Ya! Yes! I stayed, I stayed with the Theater. I stayed in Monterrey. Let’s say I am one. I consider myself as an adopted daughter, and that is how many of the top theater personalities from that time consider me. Teachers I had like Sergio García, who was my greatest mentor, my greatest mentor, may he rest in peace, Julián Guajardo, Luis Martín Garza, that is, this, Minerva Mena, a lot of, Virginia Leos, all the teachers of that time of the Monterrey theater. This, and yes, I believe in Monterrey, basically they adopted me. This, and I also feel on one hand, as very Northern. And I like how much Northwest in general, the northerners in their, in life, no? In everyday life, I don’t say in the theater, but in life. And that’s it! And that’s where I did my school of theater and there, because it begins to be heard from being so far away. It has always been like… I think we are very far, Monterrey from CDMX.
S: Yes, yes.
A: Yes, it is a long way. But I begin to read, to listen to my teachers tell me about people here, right? Luis de Tavira, the Professor Margules, this is CET (Centro de Experimental Teatral). This, in short, a series of places… Julio Castillo was still alive, his last work ‘De la calle,’ I remember that I came to see him. I took a bus and said, ‘I, I have to see.’ And it has been one of the pieces that I think was like this, ‘what is this?’ It impacted me a lot as Ludwik’s work, I could see ‘‘Las amargas lágrimas de Petra Von Kant’, ‘La Señora Klein’, certain pieces no? and that, I said, “in Mexico, things are happening, I want to know what they are.” And I decided to come to CUT (Centro Universitario de Teatro, UNAM), to enroll in CUT. It was there that I became acquainted with Ludwik very, very closely, as a matter of life, because I lived next to his house with some friends, with Claudio Lomnitz anthropologist, brother of Alberto Lomnitz. Ehhh, and I met Ludwik this way. I was even traveling with him to the prerequisite. He took me, and I did not pass the prerequisite… that is, I did not succeed. It was a great frustration in my life. It was from those traumatic moments that happen…
S: Uh-huh …
A: And that’s it, I did not enter the CUT and now what do I do? And I wandered a little in Mexico City. I went to the Héctor Asarta School, CADAC. I left CADAC. I got to listen to the University lectures with José Luís Ibañez, in his workshop on Saturdays… I went there looking for, how to stay, and how to continue training in Mexico City. Until another time comes, so no, it wasn’t planned either that it was the Earthquake of ‘85. I experienced it here and, as that was a kind of personal thunder, which sent me as well as a certain… strong depressing moment, and my mentor, Sergio García told me, “Go back to Monterrey, now!” Months after the Earthquake, I went to Valles. I went back to Monterrey. And there I went again with the Northerners who received me. This, I stayed there, eh, still, which, and I think, that was the great experience for me in the end, to train without school, in a place where I did not expect… That was in the Teatro de la Ciudad, as a worker in Tramoya, as a Technician. In fact at that time, me, along with another technician from Chihuahua, and another from UNAM. We were the only three (3) female technicians in Mexico.
S: How wonderful!
A: So, I had a great boss, the architect Lazcano, who was at the theater at the time, who totally adopted me. And another great boss, Guillermo. That, they adopted me that way. I was just like the theater mascot almost, because, imagine a woman among all men in those years, as technician. Then literally, ALberto Lazcano told me, “You know what? In order to be respected and taken seriously, you will have to start from scratch from above the stage.”
S: Wow.
A: And said and done. He put me as a stagehand, at the lowest salary. Ehh, with all the aggravating factors, in the sense of not having vacations in the first year of anything, being like this… but I loved it! In other words, I learned everything that an actor cannot teach or is not taught at the University…
S: At school… correct.
A: Not at all, that is, I’m talking about getting on the grill, taking apart a lyco, cleaning it, how to paint the stage… until I became Traspunte. Let’s say that everyone accepted me and said, “Well, ok, ok, is that okay? You are a woman, you are young but let’s see… if you work, right?” And it was an incredible few years, three years at the Teatro de la Ciudad. Where I also lived very important things for my career that are, a lesson from Ramiro Osorio made by the Teatro Español in Mexico. Where I had to coordinate in a very special space in Monterrey, the Superior de Música y Danza; La Fura Dels Baus, the first time she came to Mexico with ‘Accions’, a show that was so tremendous… I coordinated that by myself, and then that was that…
S: Wow
A: It was like that, gods, to meet all those characters, no? Tremendous … everyone watched what they did with their mouth’s open. And then, I had another incredible experience, which was the visit of Eugenio Barba’s, Odin Theater to Monterrey. Which was also brought by Ramiro. With a piece… that I don’t remember the name… ‘Ornitorrincos’? Something like that I think it was, or ‘… el Evangelio…’, I don’t remember the name. Very rare, for everyone it was like, this, “what is this?” And to be working as a volunteer, also coordinating the space and… this, and I think that these things influenced me a lot for what it is now, because what I have done since then in the theater, that is, because something that for me is not separated at all, because well, I have worked it. What is this work? Creative production, producer, manager, curator, and artist of the scene… which is all, well, everything I’ve worked in, right? I mean, with everything we do at Teatro Línea de Sombra, since Teatro Línea de Sombra (TLS) started formally in Mexico in ‘95, ‘96, around there. Ehh, well, it’s not being an actress and going to castings and… I mean, it hasn’t been my life since, since the theater?
S: Yes, exactly.
A: Yes, I have, a long time ago, but boy, I think this was definitive, right? This part of training outside of school, which is what I’m talking about.
S: Exactly, I listen to you and what makes me reflect is that sometimes, in the life of the performing arts… well, I am a dancer …
A: Aha
S: I have rather dedicated myself to dance, but I really like to see theater. I really like to see the performing arts. But it’s always the same, there are these reflections of how it seems what is the way to get to the stage? And not all the paths of all are the same, and not all have to do with academic training. Because all that learning that comes from outside, ehhh, many times they are things that you do not know when you are in school. So it seems to me that this is a very good example of how your profile is outlined based on all those, ehh, because some incidents perhaps, maybe some things that were, perhaps luck, but in the end, as things that one is looking for, and that today determines what exactly is, Teatro Línea de Sombra… We would like you to talk to us, what is Teatro Línea de Sombra and what does it represent on the national scene? I have had the opportunity to see a couple of productions in the years that I have been like, eeehhh, getting to know the scene of… the performing arts in Mexico and it seems to me that it is one of the companies that marks and determines, ehhh, a kind of avant-garde, a different way of approaching the stage, ehhh, inclusive texts. So, it would be, uh, very important if you can share a little more about it.
A: Well, after this one, this, a brief history of what my training is both in and out of school. More than anything, of those years in Monterrey until I decided in a moment to go to Spain. I go for four (4) months. I return. I do not stay. I always wanted to go and I always come back. That’s the truth. Ehhh, and I come back and also, I can tell you that it is another species like, I don’t know, what do I know? Another coincidence, a gift in life that suddenly, after the trauma of the CUT and the… saying, “I’ll never return to Mexico City.” Ehhh, my second boss of the Teatro de la Ciudad says to me one day, “You are going to go to Mexico City for a casting because there is a play in which you are going to enter.” and I, but how? What? what is it about? And he buys me a plane ticket, as is, sends me to Mexico City.
S: Wow…
A: I come here and do a casting for a play. This was the casting for ‘‘Pecado en la isla de las cabras’, with Alejandro Camacho, Helena Rojo, Gina Morett and, the producer was Pablo Leder, who just passed away last year. This, and the director, he was producer and director. So, after I do my casting, I return to Mexico City and soon they tell me, “Well, yes, you are going to stay,” and it is a play by Ugo Betti, with four characters. I was a young girl and… already, with that work I came to Mexico City, and I did one of those enormous tours in existence. This was like a commercial theater but not the most commercial one. We were at the Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros which, at that time, worked a lot at the Polyforum… I mean, I did 300 performances of that work. It was when there were those kinds of seasons.
S: Wow.
A: And that allowed me to stay in Mexico City. From there came another job with the same producer, an all female cast, where I know, there I met, I say… Helena Rojo who was at the time like my adoptive mother, Gina Morett, I mean, I know people from that time who later went to another story. They were no longer people with whom I continued contact. I stayed in Mexico City, and at a certain point, the work begins, and I am going to bring it up because it seems important to me, ehhh, FONCA begins as an institution.
S: Yeah.
A: And, I decided that I wanted to go again. And I ask for a scholarship abroad.
S: Give me a second, I’m going to, I’m just going to, FONCA is the National Fund for culture and the Arts
A: National Fund for Culture and the Arts.
S: Just to contextualize for people, well, listeners who may be from the US or hopefully from other places, eh, it is an institution that supports production, creation, in some aspects distribution and production-related to the art nationally. Sorry…
A: And unfortunately, extinct a few days ago.
S: Correct. Now to see if we give ourselves a space to talk about it.
A: Yes, that’s why I wanted to bring it up. I am one of the first, and I say it clearly, of the first scholarships abroad, through FONCA’s study abroad programs, I went to Paris to do a year of the Ari Fratellini Circus School. At that time I wanted, this, to start doing things that have to do with the body. And there, this is combined with Teatro Línea de Sombra, because I had met an extraordinary company in Monterrey, called Mimus Teatro, which included Ricardo Leal, Fernando Leal, Leticia Parra, and Jorge Vargas. And they were like that, that is, when I saw Mimus Teatro I said, “Wow, what is this?” And not only did I say it, I remember that they came to the CUT, and that Margules presented them at the CUT, and that it was an extraordinary company of, let’s say at that time, it was the mime, which is the dramatic dramatic corporal mime, not the pantomime, but another type of mime that was, just Decroux’s Mima. And, there I met them in Monterrey. But I separated from Monterrey. I was going to Paris for this scholarship. And when I return, I find Jorge Vargas here in Mexico – who had already moved to Mexico City, already he had left Monterrey. And then we started in Mexico City, because he had already started there with a couple of shows in Monterrey, with colleagues from Monterrey, Teatro Línea de Sombra. He and I, we, now we do get together, in every way, because we were a couple this, a long time… many years, 16 years. And we started the work in Teatro Línea de Sombra, with a work completely devoted to dramatic texts, dramatic in the sense of fiction, dramatic, European. A lot of contemporary text that we were interested in addressing certain themes, very specific, and authors that interested us. And like all the firsts of TLS, we started our way, our home was Helénico, the Hellenic Grotto, which welcomed us with the first projects, and…
S: Wonderful space …
A: Yes, when La Gruta was really like a cave, cave, grotto, grotto, grotto…. Ehhh, with Otto Minera, who was one of the people who welcomed us, and supported us a lot at that time to start making the first works. And from there, I believe that this was the first part of the text work, but with a strong accent of the work that Jorge had done in Monterrey and had also gone to Paris years, many, many years ago. With the dramatic corporal mime that I also later entered that job, I went a few months to Canada, we went together to England to work on that corporal technique. It was a very strong accent in the work of, of text that we did, of the body and of the work of the body. In a precision as within realism, but a realism that we called it ‘as altered’, right? Where you saw an actor like Arturo Ríos, like Laura Armela, Juan Ibarra, Tere Rábago, me, working from a handicap and a very precise thing on stage, that which became quite radical in the sense of a realism out of a tone. This, cooked, was identifiable at that time. Then, that part was very important in Teatro Línea de Sombra, to later become one as first, I would say, a first break for ourselves. Which is when we do ‘Galería Muribundus’, a piece about Beckett; where was Roberto Sosa, Ricardo Leal, myself, and Emir Meza, who was the first creation of TLS, where, yes, he places us as a benchmark of physical visual theater. At that time, that many, several generations, had to start to get to know. And from there, two more parts of the company are joined, which are currently; Transcersales, which at that time was the ‘Encuentro Internacional del Cuerpo’, the physical theater and on the other hand, a degree that we started in Hellenic. So, let’s say that we have always talked about TLS as having three legs of a table… The fourth one is also there, in short, but this of the formation, the diffusion and the creation. And so this project called TLS, as a creative company, I think that if it becomes, definitely, an artistic project, with all these three, ehhh, pieces, parts of the circle that joined and complemented each other; because of the degree…
S: Yes, very vast.
A: Yes, because students, ehh, the students are small generations of people who join us in this work and who are looking for alternative forms of production. The work of the performing arts, now also called Artes Vivas, that, there are people who came of dance, which came from the theater. And they begin to train in that degree course which lasts a long time. And that we have graduated five (5) or six (6) generations. And then it is transforming. As all our work has been transforming, to a point that I would say that we are on our second transformation. I would think of the, in the history of the company that is, ‘Amarillo’ which is another piece created, that comes after a piece that almost no one saw. That we started it in a work of what we now call ‘laboratorio de creación’, which was ‘La oscura raíz’, which came from a first attempt at a ‘Oscura raíz’ in Monterrey. This was like a second part, and ‘Amarillo’ is the result of that laboratory work in practice, research… where, we definitely, and in what we are doing now, is a performing arts research work that involves the field, as in the ethnographer’s way, from the anthropology, but from the artistic point of view, and research for all the work, of what is the work of the company in the last ten (10), ten/twelve (10/12) years, right? So, that is like, the journey from the text theater, to the physical theater, to the research and laboratory theater that is what we are in now, all the projects that we are now developing.
S: Sorry, yes. Now that you mention it, uh … I had the opportunity to see ‘La oscura raíz’ many years ago, and now
A: (surprise and laughter) Yes …
S: Yes, yes… I remember it well because, uh… at that time, well, I was studying a dance major; and if it was something a little, it was strange… it was not like the theater that one goes…
A: Sure! It was very strange.
S: It was super strange, but I have to say that it was very… I don’t know, for me it was aesthetically very satisfying, no?
A: No, nothing … I think.
S: Ehh, but if I remember that part and yes, also after seeing ‘Amarillo’, it seems to me that it has a very interesting relationship there in the search, in the use of all the discourse, both of the objects, of the word, of the actor, no? Of what they have to do on the stage… So, yes, today I connect, after so many years, and I find it very important. I would like, uh, for you to tell us a little about what Transversales is. But before moving on to that point. I can’t help but ask you. At that moment when you tell us that there is this first breakup, from the same company where they begin to have another search because, now that you tell us what TLS is and how it is so vast because there has been a continuous need that not only focuses on, let’s say, an artistic line, but on what they share with us pedagogically, of the promotion, of, perhaps share with other colleagues and people, students or people who like the performing arts, how to find other way and ask and reflect on it. When they make this break, at some point there was like, this question of, let’s say, the environment, of the people who made theater in the way that it has been done and has been done. In that it was rare. In that perhaps it was not theater … ehhh, did you go through that moment?
A: So.
S: There is still that discussion, right?
A: yes yes
S: And what can you answer about it?
A: Yes, as an unsuccessful discussion… At one point, perhaps it was important or for many to ask at some point. It never was for us. But that break I am talking about, comes hand-in-hand with the ‘Encuentro Internacional del Cuerpo’, because in the last production, uh, edition we made, sorry, in Querétaro, just the first eight years of the meeting where there, just … uhh, I remember that we invited a couple of companies, one Polish, another Czech, with a project that we started to mirror with Prague, where we invited Rubén Ortíz to Héctor Borges, who also started with their, this, with their stage work, I remember that, ufff! Already at that time the theater and dance community in Querétaro, and that, they already said about us, “They are in decline, and what they are doing is no longer valuable.” No? “What are they bringing? no? It is dance?” But it is dance, but what is it? But no? Very controversial, a Czech company that worked with… And now you say that and the truth, no one is surprised. That he worked with three men who were not dancers. That one was a firefighter, the other an ex-policeman and the other a … what do I know? He sold encyclopedias. And they danced on the stage and the whole irony was about ballet, etc. no? But, I remember that it was very controversial, like this, “What is TLS doing with this? This is nothing, no? … This is not dance, this is not.” So, in short, always that discussion… and if, it goes hand-in-hand, totally, of those species as of conjuncture, ruptures, let’s say that cracks in, in the work of our company, creators and artists, and what we were, ehhh, putting there, for the community, through the ‘Encuentro Internacional del Cuerpo’ Which later, definitively, after Querétaro, when we go to Pachuca, in Transversales, and Transversales, it is positioned in such a way, immediately. And gives us the possibility to say, “Come, come, what has to come in terms of all this erasure and erasure of disciplines?” And then we started a work with companies and artists that already, eh no, Transversals already. Yes, that space became where there were questions and questions about the scene, if it is theater, if it is not theater… There everything could fit and there it was… it was the space to discuss it … It was what we wanted, wasn’t it? To find that space to discuss it. And I think that from there, yes, in addition to the ‘Encuentro Internacional del Cuerpo’ where I later managed to track people. Who went to work with the Russians? Who came and went with the English? Who left and went with the clown? Who? I mean, there were a lot of people right now. I can’t name them all for you, yes, first in Teatro del Cuerpo, it influenced, it had an impact… They were doors and horizons that opened up for people. Ehh, when you can’t travel, when it’s not so easy to leave, when the thing of navigating in Google and seeing everything on the internet was still not like it is now… Ehhh, and well, look. Now in these times that we are talking about confinement. And, and later Transversales, where many people began to have those contacts and that was what we were looking for, an exchange. Transversales or “the Encounter” it was always called, not a festival, “Encounter”. So, there were companies that impacted us, that influenced us, with which we also had creative relationships. Akhe Group, a Russian company that was invited to come four (4) times. But the last two times they were already creating work with us. I mean… Everything begins to mix, to become a place where you can find if you are a producer, if you are a dancer, if you were an actor, if you were a manager, do you understand me? Ourselves, myself, right? I begin to relate to the outside in a different way, as a programmer, curator… this one, and to participate in another way; personally, with my work, this … of everything we could call stage-artistic management at this time. So, yes, these questions are definitive, those questions are given, and we do not move from the place, right? And… well, you… I don’t know… you saw Amarillo, I don’t know if you saw it after, ‘The dark root’ or you have seen it, and nobody is asking us if it’s theater or not theater. I think we make theater. I believe that TLS does theater. Some. For some we do not do theater. Yes, for the most orthodox. They will surely say, “These, that is, they came to decompose many things,” surely. But now I think that there are already a lot of people who are moving and who are seeing the performing arts, definitely, influenced by many artists from outside of here. From there, that … that question, is a little bit I think…
S: Passed …
A: Yes!, definitely
S: Yes, yes… it seems to me that it is a very similar discussion, sometimes also that there are other disciplines…
A: So.
S: But…
A: In dance, obviously…
S: Yes, in dance definitely. And I think, I suppose, that in other areas… Eh, but I would like to ask you, eh, if this… I think that when you, or when a creator decides, to put what you want to put on the stage, it is a function of, at the end, of the speech, right? In other words, how do you emphasize what is the most important part when you create? When there is already a finished product, it is the process, it is the meetings, the reflections, what you intend to share with the audience, everything? I don’t know…
A: Look, in our processes… they are long, they are processes divided into stages, that are suddenly clear to us, or are like, mixing. Ehh, now, later and basically from “Amarillo”, where we decided on the one hand, to talk about reality and the context that surrounds us, social, political, what interests us around us. Well, in this country, then, right? We decided to approach the issue of migration. For example, in “Amarillo”, under an investigation that was, on the one hand, of objects, clearly, of objects working laboratory as seen, ehhh, archive, documentary archive, image, film, documentary about everyone. Thanks to the Festival Todas las voces contra el silencio who are the ones who supported us with a whole archive of documents, with digital testimonies… In other words, that’s how we started this part where we first dedicated ourselves to an investigation process. Then to one practical laboratory with performers. And then a whole assembly process that never ends with the premiere of the piece, but goes on and on and is debugged, right? And I think that, in other words, what has led us to this kind of – I would not call methodology – but rather a working procedure, is to go ourselves on the one hand, refining a certain work process, and on the other hand also asking ourselves about what does and does not work for us, practically or not in other processes. After “Amarillo” comes, also an important moment which is, ehh ‘Baños Roma’, ‘Pequeños territorios’; all subsequent pieces… ‘Durango’ has to do with moving ourselves to space and going to do artistic ethnography, that is, to the place, do you understand me? ‘Baños Roma’ is a fundamental thing for us there, that is, we are going to look in Juárez for Mantequilla from a newspaper note, until we find him and decide with him, basically, to do a job in Juárez, which had to do with renovating his gym. We did the rebuilding, the renovation of his gym, which is not in the room. In other words, what is in the piece and what is not in the piece? This question that you ask me on the one hand. What is in the piece? I think that everything that derives from the research process, which basically falls into a system that we call, ‘un sistema de preguntas y de cuestionamientos’ (a system of questions and questioning). That, we are interested in asking ourselves and placing, there, because what the pieces have is that, questions. Questions to us, questions thrown there… not for anyone to solve, so you can find something in that question too, possibly as a spectator, as an audience, right? So, what you tell me is, it’s like… you always stay, I think, many times as with the desire to continue and follow and follow the process … I, lately told Jorge, “the misfortune is that they have one to premiere”, because there is no other, I have to premiere and open to the public. But many times the premieres in TLS, they grab us,say, it seems that with the hands on the door and they smash our fingers… but it is because our processes, we have already decided that in the end, even opening the door to the viewer… continue. And continue, and continue seriously, because now I can tell you, for example, that the last piece, ‘Filo de caballos’, that we spent two years working between Mexico and Chicago. In the end, we opened doors, we released it in 2018. We put it back on stage in 2019 at MUAC last year, and it’s another idea of space, another process test, we move the pieces again and they give us… the pieces themselves give us the opportunity to play like that kind of, of puzzles where we put it right now… Well, not of puzzles, as if the pieces to assemble where, right now, “we move the one that we had at the end at the beginning but we think that it better goes here.” That is, in that sense, our actors, artistic collaborators, performers, say, stage performers, are always… being people who are with us in one and the other process, although it is not a company that can pay fixed actors, but we work for projects, they are used to us in that this is a work process, having the opportunity, the flexibility to continue investigating, to keep updating, to continue investigating, not to be closed. In the structure and in the processes, never… ‘Amarillo’, for example, is a fairly closed piece in one sense. But there is always something there that is, putting it back today and that, obviously, the theme itself puts it currently all the time, right? Migration itself. It makes us, sometimes we feel that we are far behind, very obsolete, it was created ten years ago, ‘Amarillo’ we celebrated ten years last year; and it is the most touring piece of the company.
S: Yes, it seems to me a very current topic.
A: Of course!
S: It doesn’t look like a work from ten (10) years ago.
A: And also on stage, many people tell us, “it does not seem like it was done ten years ago.” And the device, if anything has evolved, the ‘Amarillo’ device at a stage-technical level, strictly visual, is that now, instead of traveling with twelve (12) suitcases, we travel with five (5), because technology has helped us. And what we have done with the piece to make it much easier … right? And also the project itself has gone to other places, because now in Mexico, what we do with ‘Amarillo’, is a specific project, since 6 years ago, which is called ‘Amarillo en la Ruta Migrante’ (Amarillo on the migrant route), which is a project intervention in the community, the migrant community… and it’s something else. We work with a visual artist, we do it every year only, we go to the migratory route. We went from Tenosique in the South to Agua Prieta in Sonora in six (6) years. This, then, we also walk to other places that no longer have to do exclusively with the theater, with the performing arts, do you understand me? And that is what we are currently in, in that … in which the processes last, they have a durability, a duration in time: sometimes longer, than if we have to, ourselves, stop to say, “well, this is no longer?” It has to be something, it has to be a performance, it is going to be a performance… and we make theater, we make a performance… we do not, although we have processes, that lead us to the installation, inhabited installation, that we have called, performative. We have made pieces that have to do directly with the installation… but if we consider ourselves a theater company and what do we stage, right?
S: Yes, I think that a marvel of the artes vivas is that, this you shared with us, that there are works that have and that can change space, even when it is the same work or the same case of ‘Amarillo’, me I imagine, that when presenting it in different spaces, with different audiences it feeds back and all the time it is something different, it is not like a text that, perhaps, has already been created and, unless someone wants to intervene later, it will not change its nature but the artes vivas have that, that wonder. In this sense, I would like to ask you, how do you identify certain creative barriers, how do you break them? And this added a bit towards, asking how, for example, you deal with the issue of criticism? Why do you consider that criticism is important? Or criticism is not important.
A: I wish there was criticism. Hopefully! It is already lost. In other words, the idea of … I wish we could have an intelligent critic. This lucid, ehhh, formed, as in other places. I, if I see something in our archives of the company for 25 years, is how what we can call “criticism” has become thin, that possibility that someone, looks, analyzes, writes, reflects on your work, because… there isn’t. That is… if there ever was, little… The other day, we found a criticism of a note, like this by Rodolfo Obregón from 2006, from ‘Demons’, a piece that we put together in El Galeón, from a Swedish author named Lars Norén, who made three (3) pieces by that author, and it was very rich. It was very interesting and it was very nice now, in this running of the bulls so suddenly to find it, read it, and say, “look, someone was in charge of writing one, right?” Ehhh, no! I wish there was. Now, errr… it was pillaged…
S: You know? Do you have any idea why this has happened? Because I think that something very similar has happened in dance too, but that is, I try to reflect and find how, you know, theories that, of course, it’s not that I can formulate them, but I don’t know, do you have any idea why you think this happened?
A: Well… let’s see, it is complex, I think. But on the one hand, I think, there is no training for critics. And in other countries if there is training in the schools of… look, I am not saying that school is everything, far from it, I told you about my experience. That I feel more educated outside of school than in school, obviously. But there was never training like… critical writing in any school, right? Then, some who started doing it, I suppose that for sustenance, in the spaces that they had written, which was still paper, right? That you still read in La Jornada, that you read in Tiempo Libre, that you read in who knows where, in other magazines… Well, one, printed paper is over, it is running out, but hey, digital is huge in the world, so you could continue writing. But others happened to turn already on the side of, on the ‘other side of the court’… from the creators. And always, you had the feeling after that certain criticism, or critical writing was like from someone, who wanted to direct the work, right? What they wanted to do the choreography, which is not a smart critic, and brilliant, right? This, thoughtful, but it seemed that he was like, wanting to direct the piece, no? You were starting to feel like that… at least in the theater. Ehhh, the interest was lost, right? But I think that we ourselves were not able to take it in such a way that it was not personal, that you did not take it personally, but it was a way … What I would say is, this happened many years ago, the disappearance of critical feathers, right? On the one hand, I told you I believed, at least in the middle of the theater, many they had passed as well as starting to ‘be creators’ and that they stopped writing or theater teachers, etc. On the other hand, I think that maybe we should ask ourselves why? If they lost interest in us, and, what we do we do?
S: Sure…
A: Now, I would say that it has evolved, at least in the theater, and also, I believe in dance. What I always feel is that it has been left behind with many things. Ehh, that also now it would be interesting if it were written more and that there was more interest. There is no training of schools to do it and the people who write now, perhaps write more essays, theatrical, and no longer about the pieces, but about the artists… Maybe they are writing in another way… about the creator’s work more than about what, about the piece they see. It would be interesting if there were again… but take it in a more adult way, you know, because I think there was a lot of very bad criticism, in the sense of poorly written, poorly done, poorly thought … of bad milk, right? And then it did not become a good habit in the sense of saying criticism helps me to confront myself, to ask myself, to dialogue, right? … I wish it were that way. But, I think that now, that is a question to ask ourselves, as well as, since the question that we now have to ask ourselves again or to ask again about what they have always put on the table, of the … of the public, of creating audiences. Now which audiences? What are we going to talk about? What are we talking about with this confinement? With this… with this pause? That for me… even if you haven’t asked me, but I’m going to start talking about it… for me, it would have to be a pause to think, for… I was saying to a colleague who wrote to me from Brazil today, to a manager, to a producer, I said, “for me it is like an active silence that we could, ehhh, practice in this pause, instead of wanting to do, do, do, do, do.” I have not seen anything, nor do I want to see anything of all the things that are put online… if anything, if the documentaries of ‘Ambulante’, but not the things that you are doing there, ipso facto, of the confinement and of… wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let’s give ourselves a chance, right? We are all experiencing confinement. And the truth, surely those who are doing or are doing the same thing, this interview, you, me, and others are living it in a better way than others, who are living it terribly… So, they give… You have to give yourself the opportunity for a little silence, to think, to see what comes next, to plan… for the future… because this is going long, we already know … it is going long. And also, what are we going to do with our rooms, our pieces, our staging? With this of the distance, of the distance that is being asked of us and of what we have to take seriously as a distance until the vaccine of this virus appears? So how are we going to work with that? Ehhh, how can it be part of everything? How can it be part of what you imagine, think, conceptualize, anyway? Ehhh, I think that if we must also take advantage of the opportunity of the pause and not, and give time to leisure, to this new moment, to this not to do and not to want to do, do, do. That’s what we are all the time. It is a society that involves us doing, doing, self-exploiting, doing… well, calm down! No? Calm!!! And let’s do something else. And let’s do what we used to do at home but now with more time at home, right? Ehhhh, well, it’s what I believe. It’s what I think. What’s going for me? I am anyway, I lived, before confinement, a lot in my house. Then I don’t, it is not very different in my life… If it is different for us as a company and as, like many others, we are not the only ones nor in the world or here in Mexico, that we dropped many projects abroad, tours, etc, things that you also miss on an economic level and also on an artistic level, But well… At some point it will return, because I am also not optimistic, in everything that is being written today that we will become a new society… hopefully! I wish we could think more about cultivating our garden at home, realizing that right now we are consuming super few things, we take out less garbage, etc, etc, etc. This… hopefully… that those were the things that would change and that we were thinking about, right? And of course, I also agree with what many people are pronouncing today saying, “We are the last in line.” But, sorry. We cannot be the first because there are many people who do not even have something to eat.
S: Yes, I know…
A: So, recently a little discussion on FaceBook, I’m not very FaceBook, I have to say it because I get bored quickly after three (3) minutes, anyway, but someone put it out there, “What are we going to do to make the theaters come back?” And it occurred to me there to say, “Well, in the first instance, that the shows be free, right? the pieces.” and they threw me out above in the sense that, “it is not about reactivating the economy?” And I say, “Sorry, but with a play with 50 tickets sold, it does not reactivate the economy.” Rather it is how we do to invite them back… To be there. To sit. To hold an hour. To be next to one another. Not to be afraid… Do you understand me? If now, even our body has changed, when we go to the supermarket, because we go in the hallway and stop this one, we turn around differently, we bring the mask, we don’t bring it, we wash our hands… That is, everything that changes our corporality, right? So, if we want to charge $200 (pesos) right away because they are going to see me then, for what? For what? So… let’s not be so proud, right? They need now, at this moment, the doctors, the nurses to not be harassed, that, they are fed, that they rest, and that they can survive all this… Ehhh, really, then, well … you had not asked me but that’s it.
S: No, I think…
A: I already told you…
S: It seems perfect to me. No, I think that… just, one of the reasons we wanted to start this, is because we are very interested in, ehhh, also knowing for the most part… outside the formality of who is the director? Who is the creator? Also to listen to a little more to those ideas, those voices that we have in our heads and then, in the end we are unified by what you are saying. We are all in confinement. Some of us are having a little better time, Others are definitely no way to make it through and they are very important questions and reflections… That, also in relation to what you said, we are not… we are used to doing, doing, doing and we are not used to living together, say, as with ourselves and reflecting, and silence… then that too, as many people are scared and this is a good time to do it.
A: Uuuufff… very much.
S: I would like to ask you a question about this, ehhh, because I… this is a very, very personal question, right? I mean, I want… I have my own ideas and answers, but why art? Because it is important? What would you share with people to say “yes, art is important” or “it has this role in the world”… “I don’t know if it has this role in the world or not, but it has to be,” than? For what?
A: Look, uh, the truth, it has no use, obviously. No. That is, say that it is useful, no… I can’t say that it has a social function, either. It is, it is, and it has been for me, and what is… Let’s see, I saw a documentary, incredible, by the way, by Herzog. I love him as a documentary filmmaker, about these caves with incredible cave paintings, where they let him in and where, with his camera and him narrating. Ehh, like this… Incredible the documentary, really, what do you say? How, that man, of course? they let him in there. It is the only one that scientists let in because it is a place like, almost sacred that if, if these paintings fall thousands of people’s breath… I know, they are very protected, right? And you saw those strokes, and what he showed, and what he narrated, and what he said. And well, of course! someone put the imprint of a hand to leave the imprint of his hand, specifically painted on a rock and, “that’s me, I… was here… I was present here, well, here I was.” I think that in this sense, thinking about art, as for the utility or the good for someone else, is like a background of the thing because we put it outside of you. But in principle, I do what I do, or you as a dancer, I believe a painter, a musician… for an enormous pleasure to do it. Ehhh, you, me, but you have to put it, and put it in a place outside of yourself. Like writing a few lines, like, I suppose, that it must be incredible to get some notes out of your voice and sing. That the other day I thought about it and said, “Shit! Why could I never sing or anything?” Not even the trickle… that is, it must be incredible to feel that, that the voice comes out of your throat and that it is tuned… and that someone hears it, and… it turns out that there is someone outside who listens to it because without that the action is not completed, no? So, it would seem to me that there is a key in that which is completed, in that which is, that is so because otherwise, we would stay. And now in this virtual thing, it is where it costs me a lot, to say, “I do it here in my house, and I record it, and put it on the screen for someone to see… you know what?”
S: Yes?
A: All your stuff that you were there doing, keep it. Keep it because like that, at least the theater, I feel, the theater, or what we now continue to think is theater, it was not made for that. Now, if you make a video art, if you make a movie, that is the language and then you use the camera and the word and the voice and etc. But that is the language. Still the dance maybe, and who knows… and who knows. So, I really refuse. So… for what? Well, for the first time for my pleasure and for those of us who do it… and yours and those who say we are in this, and second so that someone who is out there or on the other side, who is not myself, who is not with me, who is not my body, who is not me, receives it. I… I don’t know, understands it, grasps it, they perceive it. It comes to them somehow. So, I think the big issue will surely be that something happens from children, from small in our walk, walk, growing up, educating ourselves and contexts. Where that is… it is something that sensitizes us or that makes us, that makes us shrink, that reaches our body, that reaches our mind and there are many others, those who have never experienced it. So… that’s where I say, something there, there is a cut, there is a crack that, how are we going to fill it? It is not saying, “Art, art everywhere, and art in the social sense.” I don’t believe in that. It is something, like that hand in the cave that I tell you about, from the cave painting in Herzog’s documentary, that you say, “It is just a hand that man put on with a red paint. But it is the hand of that man I don’t know how many billions of years ago” And it leaves me with my mouth open, for some reason that I don’t know. So, it seems to me that it is something that if it takes us somewhere, well, very unknown and then it is very difficult for us to explain. And why do we explain it to ourselves? Why explain art to you? In other words, it is so difficult to explain the painting to you, the ‘White on White49’, the blue that moved you, the note that left you… or the voice that came out of the singer’s throat, that you said, “wow!” No? The moment you start to explain it to yourself, I don’t know which way, it seems to me that it loses, we lose many things. So, that doesn’t mean not analyzing, that doesn’t mean not reflecting, doesn’t mean not thinking about that, right? But there is something that enters from other sides, that has to do with something else, right? This, I do not know if I said it because it is very difficult for me to answer that question you asked me.
S: No, no, no…
A: It is the only thing that I can imagine that, which is the pleasure that it causes you, and that causes us to do it, and that someone can, also, cause something similar to pleasure… and many others do not, ehh?
S: Yes, no, it’s true. I think that, well, the main thing is that if you do an activity like this or any other, you have to enjoy it, but I also think that… well, personally there is nonsense because no, neither… you… you express yourself through your acts, of what you decide, of what you are building, with your day-to-day, so yes, it seems to me that personally it does not make much sense to me, but it is also true that we humans do many things or there are many people who do not have the choice, right? Then it is also a kind of privilege to be able to choose to do something like art, that is, create something etc.
A: Yes, it can also be something else… It also causes, who is a horticulturist and plants flowers and watches them grow, that is, there are other things that are starting to give you… I don’t know if it happens to you? In other words, lately it happens to me, like, you start to marvel at other things that you did not marvel at and that now that, in the face of the situation, well… “Oh, what a marvel”, no? “This or that is happening.” We are marveling at a lot of things that we were not amazed at, in the middle of this Pandemic…
S: Sure…
A: This, the great paradox, right?
S: And… Do you think?
A: You say… Wow!
S: And you think, we have a reputation, human beings. And much is said about Mexicans, but that we forget quickly… Uhh, do you think after this period that will happen? In other words, we are amazed at this and at these few times that we can have contact with our own humanity… will we forget? After returning as… to another …
A: To be honest? Yes. I’m not optimistic at all. Ehhh, it could be… yes, I’m not optimistic at all. This, hopefully, is being written a lot, right? those who are optimistic and speak… Even the Spanish President yesterday… who said, “The new… the new normality,” and you say, “Wow!” He has already invented his term … “the new normality” … And everyone is like this, “When are we going to return to normality? Hopefully we don’t return to that normality.” Well, as in everything it will be relative and for some there will be changes… yourself, right? At this moment, each one… what could we be wishing after this? Go out now, unfortunately, come back now… I ask myself, “Is everyone going to run to the shopping malls to buy things?” Let’s see? Let’s see, right? This, yes, no? In other words, I used to say, for example, these days, “how much clothes have I used? Ahhh, well, just ten (10) garments. Ahh, I don’t need more!” Why do you go to the store and buy more shoes if I haven’t needed more?!?
S: Yes.
A: And so, no? You start to, do some accounting and say, “Well, but then, if I haven’t needed more of this, then why do I go and when I leave, when I can leave, why would I go and look for more?” No? This… Well, I’m not optimistic, but deep down, there is a little light left to say, “Well, how about ‘if?’ At least, some who are there, close to you with whom you have discussed it, which is also, possibly what can probably ‘save’ us a little.” This is called, already worn, the community, and community, and community that has been spent in our cultural environment, thanks to our current policies… what is that? And I say, “Well, those are the people who are close to you, with whom you talk, with whom you talk, with whom you exchange something.” If you live in an apartment, in a neighborhood, at home, in… what do I know, and what you can, more or less, exchange this kind of feelings and ideas and… and, of things, of questions that you pass to us at this moment of confinement. And that you realize that yes, they are, maybe, thinking certain things just like you… To try to change individually, that you can later…
S: Influence…
A: But it is very small …
S: Yes …
A: Those who need to make big decisions are others who, I think right now are already benefiting from this… Now, there are already many who are benefiting from this.
S: Right, I’m going to ask you a question that is a bit complex, and if you want we can talk a little bit about FONCA, ehh … I would like to ask you what creating means, being an artist in a country like ours, like Mexico, and you know that? How it rebounds in one way or another, directly or indirectly with the topic that we are living today with the FONCA that you mentioned at the beginning of the talk.
A: Look, from the outset, we are, as a company, one of the most notable… that is, of course, this, the first thing Jorge and I have talked about is goodbye! That is, although the company does not, it was done by FONCA, definitely. If much of the life of the company, of continuity and of everything that I spoke to you about today, what we have done, and done throughout these 25 years, yes. It has to do with FONCA, right? And it seems enormous to me, and it seems to me, because we are not the only ones, there are many dance and theater companies, right? FONCA’s great controversy, big questions… I, it seems to me a huge shame that we are the same ‘community’, between quotes, artistic that we have come, this one, destroying each other. From all this year of government that what it has done, has been, put us in a fury and polarize much more. Now, which of course is perfect and the FONCA, it was necessary to review it, “Yes, but from there to extinguish it?” Or to say, “it’s over”… That’s another story, because now there is the only institution that really supported creation, with all that the word ‘artistic creation or production’ means in terms of freedom of expression, to themes, process times. That is, it’s priceless… priceless. And to see if we are going to miss it… everyone. Those who obviously say no longer, let it be… what do you want, right? Like those who… I think we will miss it. Hopefully, really, hopefully the spirit and essence of what FONCA was, which was an instance, I know! It was respected in, outside of Mexico.
S: Yes.
A: In many countries. Although, we do not have the money of Germany for culture, that Germany, only for the theater, has everything the Ministry of Culture has here. But if we are a country, within the Latin American countries, that supports artists. In this sense, I think we are, at the forefront of other countries in the Southern Cone and Central America, not to mention… Same in the United States, where we know that there are other ways and forms of production with patronage, companies… Another, another way to do it, right? The state is not the one that supports artists, as it is here. So, well… we are going to miss it, we are going to see what happens but it seems terrible to me from that place, of the possibility of maturity in the work of performing artists. It’s fundamental, because if we can see anything, it is that great imbalance that has always been. There has been talk between what is done in the Center, and what is done in CDMX (Mexico City), and what is done outside, with many exceptions, yes, but there are great gaps to fill that have to do with training, with continuity, with artistic maturity, right? That can only be given when there are instances like the FONCA. So, then… what do I tell you? What follows… well nothing, see perhaps how we return to certain forms, formats, ways of and struggles that we already saw in the past in these years of the 2020’s and those struggles, perhaps we will return… I do not know … It is very uncertain, no? I think that we are all very confused. I think that what has happened is pure confusion, for a year and we, as many companies, we are turning the matter around by saying, well, and for what… and how do we move? And where do we move? And what is next? And we can already be satisfied and say so, “here the curtain closes.” Not necessarily like this. How do we change our ways of working? Finally, we are asking ourselves many questions, personally and collectively as a group, as a company, but in general, towards a panorama of what is coming in Mexico. I say, “Well, let’s see what the young people do to fight for all this that had already been conquered” That they be brave and that they enter it, because… well, pray, we are going to give it because we know that all the projects, and that FONCA was spreading all that money, which is not that be outrageous, towards everyone, towards, towards… Let’s not talk about sources of work, towards the possibilities that everyone, indirectly, we were and went and have been and have been, many benefited by an institution like FONCA… many, then… well a pity, no? A pity, because we do not know where we are going to fall. And the worst thing, which would seem to me is that under lines given and strict, especially lines, there … ehhh, thought and, which would not be precisely towards the freedom of the creator, but towards decisions of what this government wants, or thinks of what is art or what is culture.
S: Yes…
A: That… it is going to be difficult…
S: It will be difficult… Yes, ehhh, just like the Pandemic issue, everything is a little uncertain…
A: So
S: And we will see little-by-little, to see how it develops…. Well, I’m almost ready to let you go, I promise we won’t take up much more time. But I had read around there, ehh, and I find it interesting, if you can tell us a bit about the experience you had in cinema with the film ‘Norteado’, because I think it’s important… I mean, I found an interview where you talk about how it was, about the Prize that was awarded to you … I think it’s important to comment, right? Because, I think that one of the things that we also want to do is that, we are neighboring nations, speaking of the United States, we are neighboring nations…
A: So
S: But we don’t always know what is being done in both countries, and well, there are also a lot of cultural things, and, even speaking of migration issues, which greatly impede the issue of, uh, yes of the… even with this world and technology, with communication, with countries so large, so diverse… so, well, I would very much like you to tell us about your experience, about the award and…
A: Sure.
S: And what did it mean, right? Usually…
A: Oops! … Well, that has been a gift of life because, I did not, I never had… I have done minimal things about cinema, there, but well, “Norteado” was really a gift, gift, gift, as well as ‘pum’ that fell to me like, out of nowhere, without knowing… A casting, a year later they call me again. I do it again and ‘pum’. Rigoberto decides that he wants me to be there, right? Rigoberto Pérez Cano, it was his second… his first feature film, his first ‘fiction movie’, in quotes because, I think the work he does with ‘Norteado’ is, if it was very exceptional for me… Ehh, above all that he achieves as with the actors, from where he sees the actor in, behind the camera and in the camera, which was what, exactly what he wanted, like, actors who were not, as identified by the audience… That was great. That’s why I’m there, that’s why Sonia was there, I… Harold was like someone else, I think, at the time. Now of course it is, this one, but it was a super gift… With a simple film, with very little budget and with Rigoberto’s work with us very particular. For telling you something that goes like in the anecdote, but it is beautiful. That he never gave us the script. We got together at his house. We never read it. We always talked about the topics and he met us at his house and asked us, and gave us movies to watch. In other words, it was, it was very rare, wasn’t it? Table work. And I said, “Well, there’s somewhere he wants it to go, who knows what he will want but he is very clear.” That, on the one hand, until the script appeared on the set, period. In Tijuana, I was there. It was made in Tijuana and in Tijuana it appeared for me. For Harold, well before and others. A very nice anecdote about migration, with a kind of humor, a very nice sense of humor, based on a real event. A migrant who went inside an armchair, but in a truck. Rigo changes it to the chair, which is great, right? Ehhh, and the experience of being there in the very charming Colonia Libertad, border in Tijuana at the Metal Wall where we saw the migrants jump and sometimes they turned the camera to make and take a shot, right? This, uh, in a Tijuana that at that time, which was 2009, was full of military and it was tremendous huh, yes, it was a difficult Tijuana, with the ‘war on drugs’ that 2009 and then, wow! Because all this part that has the average cinema, yes, glamorous. I did not experience it as completely, everything, everything but we shared between the four, between the three basically, that, many times because the older actor from Xalapa could not do much. Between Sonia, Harold, and me, and it was like, going to the presentations, festivals, we premiered it in San Sebastián which was incredible. Sonia and I went because it was a film co-produced by San Sebastián… ehhh, ehhh, it was a very beautiful experience, very pleasant, working with Rigoberto, very incredible… with Edgar San Juan, which I always say, “Edgar, stay as a film producer.” There it was super good… this one, and a small team, with very, uhhh, people loving the project, right? The times he asked for filming on camera, the time with the actors, all that he did so that later, yes, it was a surprise to see what Sonia and I liked the most. I remember what they told us was, “And you are really actresses?” Yes, “What didn’t they get out of there from La Tiendita?”’ Because that was what Rigo was looking for, no? In this combination, in this documentary thing, fiction, a thing like that now there is already a lot of this. And well, and then comes this thing. This also very incredible little thing about the award, which I remember when we were invited to the Festival east of Abu Dhabi, the Middle East. I had a tour with a piece called ‘La mujer de antes’ to Lima who had invited us. And that definitely now that the theater is the theater, you have to be there and it gave me a shame. Like that of ‘dang, I’m not going to that festival’ And nothing, Sonia is going, and the film wins. And one day Edgar talks to me, already here in Mexico, and says, “What do you think? That they gave an award to you, an Award for Best Actress and Sonia?” No, it is not true, of course not, “it is serious, of course yes!” No, it is not true. You are not counting. What a bad vibe, Sure! Well, it was true but the most beautiful thing of all and that is how I always tell it, there you will excuse me, but that the President of the Jury was Abbas Kiarostami, a filmmaker that I love, hallucinated, who has already passed away and I said, “This is already the greatest prize in life.” That is, that the President of the Jury was him and he gave it. Now, with this, I no longer need to do anything else in life. And this one already, ‘la Sonia’ received it and everything, and then already, the most incredible thing, that if it was the most incredible thing, is that Edgar tells us, “Hey, but they are also going to send you a check.” In other words, the Abu Dhabi festival prize was in addition to sending us the prize that was a Black Pearl, that I have there, a statuette like this. One like a very beautiful door like this in metal, like that a pearl… a cash prize … they gave us very good wool! So, that was amazing, like this, “Are you really going to give us that? We can’t believe it!!!!” And indeed, and yes, ‘Norteado’, I think it is one of the best things that have happened to me in the life of an actress. That now I always put it on the curriculum with bold letters and that’s it! That has been the cinema for me, and little things out there, little things, then a very pleasant experience with a filmmaker: María Bers, after she sees ‘Norteado’ and invites me to make a film about migration, but female with a camera in hand, experimental in Veracruz. But she is such a director, out of the ordinary that no one is going to see her, that’s how she is, experimental from another part of the world as well and now, little things, right? But I’m not like that… I understood that cinema was going to be very difficult for me, since I came to Mexico. That is also anecdotal, Helena Rojo once told me, “And see that Helena Rojo made her great huge movie of life with Herzog.” and well, and many others. But he said to me, “You know what? in the cinema it will not go well for you, because you, like me, will take you like what they call’ international Latina” He said, “You were already worth it” And if it is true. All those guy things, right? In television or movies that are this, well they are, right? And that’s it, it’s not that I have dedicated myself to looking for it in life, busily. Let’s say that I have always taken it as if it arrives, it arrives. If it falls, it falls. If it happens, It happens… If not, nothing happens, right? But ‘Norteado’ was a gift of life. This, I feel it is a nice, good movie on the thorny issue of migration and treated with great delicacy, and with that, this, like… nuance of humor, within that we know, that imigration as something of terror today, nowadays. It doesn’t even have to do with looking for the ‘American dream’, but with violence and other things. So, and then from there comes ‘Amarillo’. from ‘Norteado’ in 2009, ‘Amarillo’ becomes like the second part because we started working on the issue of imigration.
S: Interesting, what a wonder! What a good story that …
A: Yes, yes, yes, yes … yes.
S: Well, look, I’m just going to steal maybe 10 minutes from you. This last part is of very specific questions. You can give an answer in a word, a few words, or develop it a little.
A: OK, go. Perfect.
S: Let’s go to: favorite music album, songwriter or song.
A: I am going to be like this, no more than the first thing that comes to me, ‘Por qué te vas’, from the Carlos Saura59 film by Cría Cuervos.
S: Ok, favorite movie.
A: Novecento by Bertolucci.
S: Work directed by another colleague, either in dance, in the theater, in the music of any discipline that has marked you.
A: From Mexico?
S: Whoever you want…
A: All right, there is a lot, but I am in the first thing that comes to mind. Ehh, a piece by Chejov, by a Director called Arpad Schilling. Who no longer directs. Who is, ehhh … god, he is … a contemporary Chejov who was this, an ‘Tio Vania’. A ‘Tio Vania’ from xxxxx
S: OK, if you had the possibility of knowing the truth, absolute truth of something or a question, what would it be?
A: No, I don’t want to know the true-truth. I want it to be. I want us to invent, that the truth is invented…
S: Wow! I love it…. A favorite reading or one that you recommend:
A: So, as it goes, I just read Valeria Luiselli: ‘Los niños perdidos’, I recommend them.
S: What would be the best advice someone has given you and what could be the worst advice you have been given?
A: The best … my dad, small, “if you get mad, you lose”
S: Very good.
A: Yes… then we have a hard time, right? But if you get angry, you lose.
S: And the worst?
A: And the worst… gods! Ooops, it doesn’t come to me, if it comes to me at the end, I tell you.
S: What makes you curious?
A: To know if I am able to grow something that I can eat, a xxxx of tomatoes, if I can. I don’t know and I haven’t tried …
S: And now, to finish. If today they told you that you can no longer do theater, act, write, direct, produce, whatever has to do with what you like so much, what would happen to you?
A: Nothing. I am quite satisfied with what I have done, and… I would like to have more dogs, I have only one and I would like to have more dogs.
S: AHHH, very good. Thank you very much Alicia! How interesting! It has been very enriching to listen to you, to talk a little too, you know, like this type of interview that takes place a lot, right? And they have been done for many years but it is like, for me personally, as well as me, that is, I locate the company, I locate you, I locate the jobs, and it is very interesting, as through your words, to be able to see a little of what it was, right? Many years ago the theater, and I think… I think there was a time, not because today theater is not being done, etc, but there was a very good time, this one that you were talking about? Like…
A: So
S: To ask questions and to ask and that there was criticism, like a very good time that has been decreasing a little and that we hope it is just that, not? As cycles and that perhaps eventually there will be a good boom again.
A: So
S: Yes, I don’t know, something … do you want to share something else?
A: No, I am really surprised. And I thank you very much. This because, well, I told you at some point… I mean, I don’t know, they explained the fate of the interview, ‘x’, I don’t know if they hear it 3, 4 or a people, this, but… Well, always for me, someone goes beyond the conventional, or usual, or does not take the time or, it will be because right now what we have is time. And you have to know that we have time and I say, “That’s why time, time, we have to value this leisure time, uhh, because then” I was saying today to a mathematical friend who writes in a newspaper in Malaga. That, he sent me a article that talks about this, no? He said to me, it was that I had just been saying it for a while, “I’m going to try not to do anything” Let’s see how, yes, I in theory of ‘doing nothing’. But before, hours of the day like this, I am not going to do anything to see… to see how I feel. This, that I am not worried about doing nothing, that you are not worried about doing nothing… This, I, this is what I would say of this moment like this, “Wait a little while, don’t be distressed” So, maybe because we have time, “you and I are urging and you are doing this, you have this initiative, which is incredible. There is someone out there, who is not distressed, who has nothing to do, and who does listen, and who I appreciate, like ‘messing’ as well as with this effort, to ask and the life of someone that nobody cares about, that you and I had a great time this hour, this hour talking, almost as if we were having a coffee or a glass of wine and we spent it super well. Then I thank you for having a great time …
S: No, on the contrary…
A: Honestly… so this, that… that, I think it is good to also give yourself the chance, right?
S: Yes, yes… Well, I hope to be able to see you in the near future, lets see when? See you in person and thank you and…
A: So…
S: … well, Alicia, Thank you very much!
A: Thanks to you, thanks Peter! Cheers! And, well, this one, congratulations on the project and I hope it is very pleasant, that you continue doing it and you will send me the information.
S: Yes, of course yes! Thank you! We are in contact with anything.
A: Pray and take good care of yourself, take good care of yourself …
S: Same! Good evening.
A: Same, Ciao!
REFERENCES (Not all references available in English):
- Huasteca: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huasteca
- Entremés: https://www.cervantestheatre.com/home/entremeses-2/
- Paso: Creator and what is: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lope-de-Rueda
- Nuevo León Autonomous University: http://escenicas.uanl.mx/
- Luis de Tavira: https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803102224580
- Ludwik Margules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwik_Margules
- Centro Experimental Teatral: Theater Experimental Center
- Obra de Rainer Werner Fassbinder : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Werner_Fassbinder
- Centro Universitario de Teatro/ UNAM: https://www.cut.unam.mx/
- Claudio Lomnitz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudio_Lomnitz
- Alberto Lomnitz: https://romaalfinaldelavia.wordpress.com/semblanzas/alberto-lomnitz/
- CADAC/ Centro de Arte Dramático
- UNAM/ Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México: https://www.unam.mx/
- Cueing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_(theatrical)
- Ramiro Osorio: https://en.ashinaga.org/kenjintatsujinmember/ramiro-osorio/
- La Fura dels Baus: https://lafura.com/
- Odin Teatret: https://odinteatret.dk/
- Eugenio Barba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenio_Barba
- Teatro Línea de Sombra: http://www.teatrolineadesombra.com/
- Helena Rojo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Rojo
- Ugo Betti: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ugo-Betti
- Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyforum_Cultural_Siqueiros
- FONCA: https://fonca.cultura.gob.mx/
- Escuela de Circo de Ari Fratellini: http://www.fedec.eu/en/members/86-academie-fratellini
- Étienne Decroux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne_Decroux
- Jorge Vargas: http://www.fronteraarts.com/teatro-linea-de-sombra/
- Arturo Ríos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_R%C3%ADos
- Beckett: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Beckett
- TRANSVERSALES: http://www.teatrolineadesombra.com/transversales20/index.html
- Artes Vivas: http://estudisescenics.institutdelteatre.cat/index.php/ees/article/view/80/pdf
- Akhe Group: https://akhe.ru/ru/event/
- Festival Todas las voces contra el silencio: http://www.contraelsilencio.org/
- ‘Mantequilla’ Nápoles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_N%C3%A1poles
- MUAC/ Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo: https://muac.unam.mx/?lang=en
- Lars Norén: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Nor%C3%A9n
- Herzog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Herzog
- White on white: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_on_White
- Norteado: https://letterboxd.com/film/northless/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vTWaWYHUgs
- Rigoberto Perezcano: https://www.directoriorealizadoresficm.com/realizadores/perezcano-rigoberto/?lang=en
- Harold: https://variety.com/gallery/harold-torres-zerozerozero-career/
- ‘guerra contra el narco’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War
- San Sebastián: https://www.sansebastianfestival.com/
- Sand Film Festival: http://www.sanadfilmfund.com/en/
- Abbas Kiarostami: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Kiarostami
- Carlos Saura: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Saura
- Bertolucci: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardo_Bertolucci
- Chejov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov
- Arpad Schilling: https://cultureforum.eu/arpad-schilling-about-art-and-activism/
- Valeria Luiselli: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeria_Luiselli