Rodríguez, Jesusa, 1955-

Jesusa Rodríguez (born 1955, Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican theater director, actress, performance artist, social activist and elected Senator of the Morena party. <br/><br/> 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. 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. <br/><br/> 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. <br/><br/> 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. 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. <br/><br/> 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". <br/><br/> 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. <br/><br/> Rodríguez also contributes regularly to Mexico's most important feminist journal, Debate Feminista.

Laura María de Jesús Rodríguez Ramírez, known as Jesusa Rodríguez (born 1955 in Mexico City) is a director, actress, playwright, performance artist, scenographer, social activist, and senator (Moreno Party) in Mexico's Congress. <br/><br/> Well-known for her espectáculos, she steeped her performances in social and political commentary, and brought art into her activism. Although she is best known for her cabaret and political works, she has directed adaptations of diverse pieces, from William Shakespeare to Marguerite Yourcenar, opera to pastorelas. <br/><br/> Rodríguez studied at Centro Universitario de Teatro in Mexico City, and studied under director Julio Castillo, with whom she worked on several productions as a set designer, including Arde Pinocho. Early in her career she met her wife, Argentine singer and actress Liliana Felipe. They opened their first cabaret together, El Fracaso, and formed the theater group Divas A.C. with other actresses and playwrights. Divas A.C. would collaborate on many significant productions, including ¿Y cómo va la noche, Macbeth?, Trece señoritas: homenaje a Frida Kahlo, and most notably, Donna Giovanni. <br/><br/> An adaptation of Mozart's Don Giovanni, Donna Giovanni featured an all-female cast and toured across Europe. In 1988, Jesusa directed and starred in Oskar Panizza's El Concilio de Amor, which was also presented in several European countries and North America. In 1998, she first presented Las Horas de Belén in Mexico City, before staging the work Off-Broadway alongside Ruth Maleczech and Mabou Mines. <br/><br/> Jesusa Rodríguez first opened the performance space El Fracaso before opening and running the famous Teatro Bar El Hábito with her wife, Liliana Felipe. They ran El Hábito from 1990 to 2005, and over this span of 15 years, transformed their alternative performance space into a symbol of Mexican independent theater. Jesusa directed and staged hundreds of shows at El Hábito with numerous artists. In 2005, El Hábito was passed on to another cabaret group, Las Reinas Chulas, who changed the venue's name to El Vicio. <br/><br/> Alongside Liliana Felipe and fellow performer Regina Orozco, Jesusa Rodríguez had also done extensive work with indigenous communities throughout Mexico. Between 2001 and 2004, they ran workshops on empowerment, sex education, and re-articulating Mexican masculinity. Their workshops incorporated their theater experience, and they ran twenty-one of these workshops for indigenous and peasant women and men across 18 states of Mexico. <br/><br/> Jesusa's work as a performance artist informs her political and social activism, blending performance and protest into creative or artistic activism. She was involved in protests against substituting native corn for transgenic corn and the purchase of Monsanto by Bayer. She was also a part of the peaceful resistance movement and headed Resistencia Creativa, a movement that used "massive cabaret" as a political action tool. The movement was purportedly born in El Hábito, out of Mexico's highly contested 2006 general election and the political polarization and crisis that followed. With the election of conservative ruling party candidate Felipe Calderón by a fraction of a percentage, presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador immediately challenged the legitimacy of the election and its results. López Obrador and his supporters, including Resistencia Creativa, led mass protests, marches, and acts of civil disobedience, which culminated in a massive rally in Mexico City's historic Zócalo on July 30, 2006. <br/><br/> When then-senator Olga Sanchez Cordero became Secretary of the Interior in 2018, Rodríguez took Cordero's seat in the Senate. She is the first openly gay senator in Mexico. <br/><br/> Rodríguez also contributes regularly to Mexico's most important feminist journal, Debate Feminista.