"When I was a child they told me I was autistic and I understood artistic, that's why I dedicated myself to this"

Mexican director, actress, playwright, performance artist, scenographer, entrepreneur, and social activist, Jesusa Rodríguez has been called the most important woman of Mexico. Her "espectáculos" (as both spectacles and shows) challenge traditional classification, crossing with ease generic boundries: from elite to popular to mass, from Greek tragedy to cabaret, from pre-Columbian indigenous to opera, from revue, sketch and "carpa," to performative acts within political projects. For fifteen years, she and her partner, Argentine singer/actor, Liliana Felipe owned and operated El Hábito and Teatro de la Capilla, alternative performances spaces in Mexico City.  There they presented hundreds of short, humorous cabaraet pieces that critique the machinations of political leaders both in Mexico and abroad.  La conquista según la Malinche and La serpiente enchilada are examples of this work.  They often improvise and update scenarios so that various versions exist of serveral pieces.  They have also created full-length plays, such as Sor Juana en Almoloya, in which both women create the text and lyrics for the music, composed by Felipe. In 1999, they won an Obie for Best Actor in Las Horas de Belén, A Book of Hours with Ruth Maleczech and New York-based Mabou Mines. Rodríguez contributes regularly to Mexico's most important feminist journal, debate feminista.  More recently, Rodríguez completed a ten year project of memorizing the 950 lines of Sor Juana's most challening poem, Primero sueño, and developing it into a solo performance.  Rodríguez is a major activist who has been very involved in electoral politics, as the performance arm for Andrés Manuel López Obrador's presidental bid as the PRD's candidate in 2006.  She has also done extensive work with indigenous women in communities throughout Mexico.

Begin this path: Jesusa Rodríguez (Mexico)

1. Nahuatlismo: The Aztec Acting Method
2. The Conquest According to La Malinche
3. Excerpts From "Genesis," "Barby: The Revenge of the Devil," and "Censorship: The Bald Rat in the Garbage"
4. Videos (Plays and Performances)
5. El Habito
6. Activism
7. Other Materials
8. Bibliography

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