Wendy Ramos put down her cell phone and went to a retreat before the two screenings of 'Clown to the Rescue'. With more than 586,000 followers on social networks and “fame” for having been on a television show, she seeks balance. “I look for my peace of mind when everything is collapsing. You may be celebrating your birthday and you remember that there is war and people dying, you feel bad. It gave me peace to feel that I can be sad, that I can laugh and I can cry,” she responded to us over Zoom.
-I read a description of you: clown, director, screenwriter, actress, writer, health promoter. How do you describe yourself?
-Do you know what I feel? That I can go here and there, I feel that I am not stuck in any of the pieces, that I can go wherever I want and whenever I want. It is an advantage? Yes, it is (laughs).
-Does that stage have to do with not having played it safe?
-It happened to me. She has had to be, in many workshops, the worst in the class. It was very painful. In fact, the first workshop I took when 'Pataclaun' ended was like that, a disaster. Nobody wanted to work with me. I had to fall and fall, and you learn more from failures than from triumphs. Why was she so arrogant, right? I was a clown, but there was more to it, I learned that I am an apprentice.
-With 'Clown to the rescue' you talk about things that could be saved, right?
-The clown lightens a lot. He received comments from former students, they were like “what would have happened to me if he hadn't done that.” He had helped them see the situation differently. The clown has even rescued me from the fear of death. Those are my 10 treasures, things that I feel have been useful.
-Your career has gone beyond 'Pataclaun'. Do you think you managed to avoid being pigeonholed?
-Humm… Not totally. There are many people who only watch television, so they only have that memory of me. That everything I had done had to do with 'Pataclaun' frustrated me a lot. When Bolaroja started to grow and I went on a trip to Portugal with hospitable clowns, people came from Canada and Europe and told me: 'You are Wendy Ramos from Bolaroja, great pleasure, excellent job.' I swear, tears came to my eyes. It was like taking away that fear I had all my life that I wouldn't have been able to do anything without 'Pataclaun'. I really felt it: 'Suddenly I don't do anything well, but they applaud me anyway.' It was a relief.
-Do you relate it to seeking individual achievement as a woman?
-We have to work three times as much to occupy the same place… that's why I don't work for anyone (laughs). I am my boss.
-In that sense, how has the scene changed in two decades?
-Before there were very few female directors and that has grown a lot. In the workshops, 80% are women. It was to be expected that there would come a time when they would begin to feel confident in how powerful they are and separate themselves from what they were supposed to be.
-You usually say that not everything is black and white, but what do you say to an audience that is in the middle of a social and political crisis?
-We must look for ways to breathe, because there is a feeling of suffocation with everything that happens, the insecurity we experience and the imbalance of powers, of the things that are managed and make us feel in a ship that no one is driving and we do not know where to go. where we are going. I think that art can heal a lot, soothe your world, at least, is balanced.
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