Josefina Esquivel is not a journalist or a writer, nor someone who has stood out in the artistic field, much less a popular or media face. However, on the stages of a Madrid theater, the vicissitudes of his life, transformed into a story, keep the viewer riveted to the seat. Josefina is a domestic worker and her voice, a song to the freedom of those who have suffered domestic confinement, overflows with emotion.
Sitting next to her, correspondents, historians, novelists and essayists take turns at the microphone. Live Diary at the EDP Gran Vía Theater in Madrid. The public, before each performance, does not know the names of the participants, although this Monday at least they knew that the evening would be themed: Spain told from outside. How do foreigners residing in our country see us? More than the person who responds, what is important is what is told and how it is told.
“People buy tickets without knowing who will be performing, but that’s part of the charm of the show,” he explains. François Musseaucorrespondent of Liberation and director of Live Diarywhich is announced on its website as “a unique night in which journalists, writers and artists tell vivid, intimate and sentimental stories in first person.” The spectators know little else about each event, which has completed thirty editions and through which some 200 storytellers have already passed for six years.
On this occasion, the organizers have selected various profiles: the Chinese economist Estela Li, the Peruvian writer Santiago Roncagliolo, the Equatoguinean political scientist Trifonia Melibea Obono, the Sephardic writer Esther Bendahan, the Portuguese journalist Margarida Pinto, the British Hispanist Giles Tremlettthe Paraguayan domestic worker Josefina Esquivel and the American journalist Andrew Ferren. Between story and story, the Spanish guitar of the Japanese Hiroyoshi Suzuki.
“There is a significant percentage of journalists, but the profile of the narrators depends on what we want to convey. Thus, the scriptwriter, writer and columnist Santiago Roncagliolo, whose job is to tell stories, can intervene, and then the domestic worker Josefina Esquivelwho had never done anything similar,” adds François Musseau, who makes it clear that his first task is to ask himself: “Who can tell something surprising about a specific topic?”
The search is not easy. “The most important thing is to find someone who has something powerful to share. It doesn’t matter if that person is shy or has a hard time expressing themselves, because we polish that. There is a lot of collective work behind it, but it shouldn’t be seen for the story to work,” confesses the French journalist. “It’s like when you go to the circus and watch a trapeze artist whose acrobatics seem easy, although you don’t see the thousands of hours he has been practicing.”
The challenge is, according to him, to turn those who possess unique stories into narrators: “We are midwives of stories.”
“Behind every story there is a lot of work”
Vanessa Rousselot, director of Live Diaryreflects the idea: “The stories are like hidden gems. They are there, but we have to find them, that’s why we always have our antennas on. Behind each one there is a lot of work and that is the strength of the format, because we are not a micro open”. That is to say, although they pursue originality and singularity, the show does not consist of a string of spontaneous anecdotes, but of deeper stories that are first sifted and then groomed.
“It’s not that easy to find them. However, we are passionate about storytelling and we believe that everyone potentially has a story to tell,” the French documentary filmmaker makes clear. Some people don’t do it Live Diarybut in their workshops storytellingwhere they learn how to count, an experience that has also helped those responsible for the project to tune their hearing and voice. “They come to us with an idea and we transform it into a story, without rushing, like a potter giving shape to ceramics.”
Once the possible narrator is identified, they scrutinize not only if they have a story, but also if they have “the desire to investigate and the desire to tell it,” he explains. Vanessa Rousselot. “If what you tell has been decisive for them, it will also be shocking for the public. But just because you have lived a story does not mean that you know how to tell it, that is why it becomes interesting when that person stops to think about what they experienced and then reflects on what they want. convey”. Sufficient as an example is the chronicle of Josefina Esquivel, which “is the story of many women”, although its structure contributes to impressing the public, the French filmmaker emphasizes.
Chronicle, monologue, show? “Live Diary is a journalistic genre of stories told in the first person,” explains François Musseau. As its reference is the Pop-Up Magazine from California, Vanessa Rousselot describes it as a format of live journalism not limited only to journalists, convinced that the best definition lies in its title: “It is a newspaper and it is alive.” It doesn’t matter if what was narrated happened last week or three decades ago, because for her that “time travel” is another of her strengths.
“A narrator breaks the fourth wall and tells the audience about an experience that has changed his life,” details the project’s website, although in the case of Iñaki Gabilondo It was he who straightened out the life of the protagonist of his story. This is how the French journalist remembers it: “Gabilondo goes to visit his wife at a hospital in Pamplona and a man stops him in the middle of the road. Nervously, he tells him that, for forty years as station chief, he has been an exemplary employee. , but that morning he fell asleep.”
Then, “he asks him to take him at full speed to his workplace to avoid a train crash, escorted by Civil Guard patrols: all very dangerous,” adds the correspondent of Liberationwho has already convinced other figures of journalism and literature to take the stage: Julio Llamazares, Rosa Montero, Alfonso Armada, Soledad Gallego-DíazSergio del Molino, Lucía Méndez or Gonzo, whose stories appear on the back of their reports and narrations.
“On this occasion we have been very inspired to look for narrators among very different people who could talk about Spain: Trifonia Melibea Obono does so through the nuns who educated her, Estela Li through her Spanish husband and her mestizo baby, Margarida Pinto through the neighboring country that always bothers, Giles Tremlett through the gaps and ghosts of our history, etc.”, enumerates François Musseau. The Spanish, before the mirror. A reflection, in the case of Andrew Ferrenhilarious.
While they prepare the next Live Diarythat will take place on May 26 In Madrid, Vanessa Rousselot reviews some anthological passages, although she cannot forget how the journalist and writer Bruno Galindo He turned a rather crazy anecdote into a great story: “He travels to Pisa to give a conference and, for four days, he plans to avoid the famous tower, until…”. The story continues, but no trace remains, because the show is ephemeral and it is prohibited to record it with a cell phone.
One night, several people, seven minutes and a microphone. “You have to be there to experience it and we are already looking for new participants,” concludes the director of a project in which other professionals such as Diane Cambon, María Miret or Rommy Artigas. “Luckily, we also have the help of a network of storytellers with a nose for detecting stories and many guests who, after going on stage, have become our ambassadors, because the experience of telling is powerful and sometimes transformative.”
#Diario #Vivo #ephemeral #show #mobile #phones #story #important #tells
