Jesusa Rodríguez

Jesusa Rodríguez (born 1955, Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican theater director, actress, performance artist, social activist and elected Senator of the Morena party.

Jesusa Rodríguez in 2013.

Her "espectáculos" (a Spanish word that can mean both spectacle and show) do not necessarily adhere to traditional genre classification. These works draw on Greek tragedy, cabaret, pre-Columbian, and operatic traditions. They can take the form of a revue, sketch, "carpa", or political performance art.[1] From 1990 until 2005, she and her wife, the Argentine singer/actress Liliana Felipe, operated El Hábito and Teatro de la Capilla, alternative performances spaces in Mexico City. El Hábito is now under the administration of Las Reinas Chulas, and Rodríguez is now dedicated to independent projects.[2]

In the 1980s Rodríguez notably directed an adaption of Mozart's Don Giovanni, featuring an all-female cast, entitled Donna Giovanni (1983). In 1988 she directed Oskar Panizza's El Concilio de Amor (The Council of Love). Rodríguez won an Obie for Best Actor in Las Horas de Belén, A Book of Hours (1999) along with Ruth Maleczech and New York-based Mabou Mines.[3]

Rodríguez's works regularly revisit historical cultures, icons, and symbols, such as her "La gira mamal de la Coatlicue" of 1993, where she transforms a pre-Hispanic statue from the Mexica (Aztec) Room of Mexico’s National Anthropology Museum into a contemporary, living being.[4] Through the use of an indigenous female icon confined in a museum, the artist parodies the attitude of official Mexican politicians toward their country’s problems. This work calls upon her children not to forget her and complains about not having a special car (a “mama-mobile”) like the pope’s. Rodríguez calls the show “pre-Hispanic cabaret,” thus pointing to the need to reduce the monolithic myths upon which nationalism tends to be based.[5]

Other famous female icons recreated by Rodríguez in her shows include Frida Kahlo (Trece señoritas, 1983), La Malinche (transformed by Rodríguez into an interpreter for former president Ernesto Zedillo and the U.S. Marines) and the nun Juana Inés de la Cruz ("Las trampas del fatuo", 1990, and "Sor Juana en Almoloya," 1995). Jesusa has impersonated Sor Juana in many political demonstrations and, as part of the Mexico City Pride March. In these particular cases, Rodríguez represented her version of Mexican history "by revisiting and emphasizing the dissident sexualities of these women, who have been hidden or strategically forgotten by official culture".[6]

In 2002, she collaborated with Liliana Felipe and Regina Orozcos on "New War, New War," for the 3rd Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.[7]

Rodríguez also contributes regularly to Mexico's most important feminist journal, Debate Feminista.

Selected Performances

1990: La gira mamal de la Coatlicue, Teatro Bar El Habito, Mexico City

1991: La Malinche en Dios T.V., Teatro Bar El Habito, Mexico City

1992: Cielo de abajo, Teatro Bar El Habito, Mexico City

1995: Sor Juana en Almoloya, Teatro Bar El Habito, Mexico City

2001: La soldadera autogena, Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Monterrey, Mexico

2004: Cabaret prehispanico, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York[8]

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References
  1. Abelleyra, Angélica (2000-10-29). "MODELO INTERNET". Portada (in Spanish). Retrieved 2018-05-13.
  2. Harmony, Olga (2011-12-22). "Libros de teatro /I". La Jornada (in Spanish). Retrieved 2018-05-13.
  3. Gates, Anita. "Review of Horas De Belen, Las: A Book Of Hours". The New York Times, May 25, 1999. http://theater.nytimes.com/show/10617/Horas-De-Belen-Las-A-Book-Of-Hours/overview
  4. Lichte, Erika; Jost, Torsten; Jain, Saskya Iris (2014). The politics of interweaving performance cultures : beyond postcolonialism. New York, London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415722681. OCLC 869456256.
  5. "Interview with Jesusa Rodríguez". hdl:2333.1/1jwstqs1. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. Marín, Paola. "The First Wave of Contemporary Mexican Cabaret: Queering the Dramatic Text of the Culture". Karpa 1.1 (2008) http://www.calstatela.edu/misc/karpa/Karpa1/Site%20Folder/marinalzate2.html%5B%5D
  7. "Jesusa Rodríguez, Liliana Felipe & Regina Orozco New war, new war Globalization, migration and the public sphere". hidvl.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  8. Fajardo-Hill, Cecilia (2017). Radical women: Latin American art, 1960-1985. Hammer Museum. Los Angeles: Hammer Museum and DelMonico Books/Prestel. p. 346. ISBN 9783791356808.

Bibliography
  • Costantino, Roselyn, “Visibility as Strategy: Jesusa Rodríguez's Body in Play”, Corpus Delecti: Performance (2000)
  • Art of the Americas. Ed. Coco Fusco. London/New York: Routledge: pp. 63 – 77
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