Juana Dolores (1992), is an actress, author and video artist from Prat de Llobregat who has forged her reputation based on her character and a passionate artistic and aesthetic vocation. She graduated from the Institut del Teatre, she immediately saw that her professional career was not going to follow the Catalan professional circle. Her first recognition was for her collection of poems Bijuteria, with which she won the 2020 Amadeu Oller Award for unpublished poets. That same year she presented her first work, Juana Dolores: massa diva per a un moviment assembleari, at the Terrassa Noves Tendències (TNT) festival. Thus, a space was opened in the Catalan theater scene that prompted her to take her work in Temporada Alta, to reside for months at the Antic Teatre in Barcelona and to tour Spain. Next, she made her first video art piece, Miss Univers, and now, she is going to present her second theatrical piece in Temporada Alta 2022, Hit me if I'm pretty, on December 2.
In the Instagram direct that he did to present his new work, Hit me if I'm pretty, he said that he hoped it would have the same reception as his first theatrical piece. What is he referring to?
When I did Juana Dolores: massa diva per a movement assembleari, I didn't have a penny. I financed it with my savings and my family and friends helped me a lot. He only intended to do four shows at the Antic Teatre, nothing more. But after premiering it on TNT I began to understand how the professional theater circuit worked. I was in the newspapers and people were talking about me. But what surprised me the most was that so many people came to see me at the theater.
I did the last performances this September at the Antic Teatre and I sold out every day. I came from a few months very disconnected from social networks and a withdrawal from public life but, nevertheless, I filled the theater for four days. I am super grateful. I guess with Hit me if I'm pretty I want to live up to the opportunity that my first piece has given me. I have gone from doing a work with almost no budget to doing a work with the most important producers in the country, Temporada Alta and the Grec Festival, and with the distribution of Art Republic.
Could you describe Hit me if I'm pretty with three adjectives?
Feminist, real and pretty.
All your artistic production is based on writing, but you have also said more than once that writing is a difficult process for you. Is the art of Juana Dolores not understood without this pain, without this violence?
The personal drama that I was able to share with Juana Dolores... is very different from what I can present now with Hit me if I'm pretty. My life has changed a lot. I won a poetry prize, a pandemic has passed that had a great impact on me and on an emotional level things have also happened to me that with the whirlwind of media coverage I have not been able to manage completely well. With hindsight, I think my previous projects were very difficult to write, but they are not a form of pain. I think that writing is a very difficult profession and that it is very misunderstood. You spend many hours at home and it is very lonely. I don't write from enjoyment either, because I fight with myself from a passionate position and committed to writing. I try to write the best I can and to find the exact word and image. All this taking into account that you have to pay the rent, you have to face inflation and the fact that there are no psychologists in Social Security.
How was the writing process for Hit me if I'm pretty?
After my tour of Spain with Juana Dolores... , my body relaxed, I went into a very severe depression and I started taking medication. Consequently, the writing process was truly painful. But it was a different pain from the profession of writing. In fact, Hit me if I'm pretty is a project that I should not have accepted. But I did it because it's been three years since my first work. Due to my professional career and also due to the economic precariousness of my profession, I decided to do it in the midst of one of the most difficult moments of my life. In addition, they offered me to do a work with all the resources, something that had never happened to me before.
How much do you share with your alter ego, the princess-knight protagonist of Hit me if I'm pretty?
In the teaser of the work I say: "The fundamental laws of the nation are not being fulfilled and loyalty to the principles that make up my kingdom is not being kept." Thus, somehow I want to say that Hit me if I'm pretty for me is to return. I have returned to the stage, but I have also returned to the "battlefield" after a very hard year for me. In this way, I demand the royal crown and declare myself an actress willing to be an explosive doll in the offices of politicians and bankers at the service of the Feminine State.
How has your aesthetic evolved as an artist from your first piece to Hit me if I'm pretty?
Juana Dolores: massa diva for a movement assembleari I consider her my piece zero. It is where I introduce myself as an author and this was my intention. I did it mostly for my family and friends. Obviously he wanted it to be a beautiful work, but it has a proletarian aesthetic, where the material conditions are very evident. In Hit me if I'm pretty I make a very clear aesthetic bet. More girly and digital. Very influenced by my friend and artistic curator of the work, Sandy Moldavia. The scenery is three huge screens, therefore, the audiovisual has a very important weight and is very careful. In short, Hit me if I'm pretty is a precious war cry that I have created from something as terrible as machismo.
Three aesthetic references that have inspired you for Hit me if I'm pretty?
My friend Sandy Moldova, the film Marie Antoinette, by Sofia Coppola, and the book The Modern Prince, by Antonio Gramsci.
Why did the theme of the work suggest this aesthetic to you?
When I wrote it, I was very obsessed with popular, medieval tales, fairy tales, anime narratives… I also started reading The Prince, by Machiavelli, and later, The Modern Prince, by Gramsci. I was already in the line of an imaginary of princesses from a feminist and communist perspective, so all the pieces were fitting together to build an ostentatious and feminine imaginary.
I wanted it to be a clearly feminist work. I have always criticized "feminist" art, because I think that capitalism has taken advantage of the success of the movement in recent years. Therefore, I was interested in making a feminist work not based on victimization, or personal drama, or testimony, that is, an obscene sentimental pornography that is filling theaters with poorly explained personal tragedies. I wanted to explain feminism from the triumph that being a feminist woman implies.
This does not mean being satisfied or not being aware of everything that we still have to fight for. That is why the protagonist is a triumphant and successful princess-knight, who claims what is hers and what remains to be conquered from a radically feminine position. In this way sovereignty is built, being aware of where we are at a feminist level and, in this way, I focus on reflecting from the awareness of the object of desire that is known to be the object of desire. Thus, the protagonist becomes the sovereign of her femininity and I have come up with a work that talks about feminism and socialism.
With what purpose?
I want the audience to leave the theater understanding what a true feminist play is. For me it is very important. I have worked hard to present a consciously and voluntarily feminist text. Also, so that the individuality of the artist is in line with the political and the militant. That's why I consider myself a militant artist.
In other words, a political purpose.
All art is political. A work without discourse is political. A white flag is political. Therefore, as an artist I owe myself to beauty but, like Juana Dolores Romero Casanova, I owe myself to my class. I am obsessed by the tension between the political and the beautiful, and this dichotomy has been translated into the question: what role should the militant artist have? I am a stateswoman (laughs).
Why a Design Trilogy?
Making my new work I have realized that I have a lot of material. I feel like doing a trilogy, although I still don't know what form it will take. Perhaps the two remaining parts are not going to be scenic. I really want to write a marxist-feminist essay and also focus on video essay and video art, which is already included in Hit me if i'm pretty.
Is the poetic tension between the beautiful and the violent that structures the work intended to make you uncomfortable like Juana Dolores: massa diva per a moviment assembleari?
My intention is not to make you uncomfortable and I don't quite understand why people say that they are shocked by my first piece. Showing off and using my body is part of my job. It is true that at the Institut del Teatre we did not do performances and we did not go out on stage naked. But my references were feminist performances from the 50s, 60s, 70s... Once at the Institute, I realized that the Lliure was shit and that I didn't want to do that. Consequently, at the slightest opportunity I had to do something, I would strip naked. When I show my pussy in Juana Dolores: massa diva per a movement assembleari I don't think of it as a provocation for the simple fact of showing my pussy, but I do it because I think it's pretty. Because I love Courbet's Origin of the World and it fascinates me that it was censored for so long.
Also, when journalists ask me if I go naked in my next work, it seems like an anachronistic question. Plenty of people have gone naked on stage before. I simply thought that for my first work a naked body, with adidas socks, red sevillana shoes and braids, was beautiful. In Hit me if I'm pretty there is an element of strong impact designed for this purpose. But I don't think it's a provocation. I always think about aesthetic criteria. My priority is to do politics, not provoke.
But the title of the work condenses two ideas, violence against women and hegemonic beauty, which in the current context may seem problematic.
The play is challenging and it is also a sexual game. It addresses the question that I can have patriarchal desires by existing in a patriarchal system. How could I not have them if I live in a fully patriarchal system! I am aware of it. That is why I face the question: What do I do with these desires? But I do not deny its existence or its contradiction with the feminist discourse. I play a lot with the ambiguity of the semantics of signs, linguistic symbols and images.
Each element that appears in my projects has multiple meanings. I like to play with this ambiguity because I think it is what allows the public to enjoy a work with open meanings and for each one to interpret it as they wish. If I succeed, it means that the work is alive and that it is not closed in a personal drama. It means that it is universal art.
