Sonia Barba: The surprise of developing creatively

She agrees to let the radio keep playing, "as long as it's not football, politics, or pundits fighting to see who's the wittiest of them all," and leans on the bar to order a vermouth and accept a cigarette from another patron, even though she hasn't smoked in twenty years. "Fortunately, enjoying the pleasure of smoking from time to time doesn't create any addiction for me," she clarifies.

"I detest talking about myself, I can't stand it, it makes me very sad to have to do it," explains the poet, performer, and tireless cultural agitator, Sonia Barba, creator of initiatives such as the notable Prostíbulo Poético, before recalling what, for her, was one of the best encounters when she came to Barcelona fifteen years ago, after having lived in Madrid: she met the journalist and editor Alfred Crespo, with whom a few key words were enough to get to know and recognize each other. "I thanked heaven and regained faith in this strange world where people spend hours talking about themselves, as if that were of enormous importance," and she smiles with a smile that has shone in a thousand nights of a thousand colors and a thousand other nuances.

"The highlight of my career is that it exists – she continues – that one can speak of a career, that is the most significant thing for me. That is to say, things are so little in favor of being able to develop creatively, that the fact of doing it, of continuing to do it, is surprising," and she sips a brief drink of her vermouth to leave a space between the words that explain the artist in terms of passion and, very importantly, teamwork: "I am extremely grateful to the people around me who accompany me in all of this. You catch me not really wanting to talk about the hardships we carry, for being women, all of us who decide to heed our creative impulse, but in a country where culture is a kind of sewer rat doomed to survive under any condition inflicted upon it, what can I tell you that hasn't already been said a thousand and one times?"

--- Indeed, the mere fact of getting by is already a source of pride.

--- I am not yet more proud of one thing than another. I value each of them because they have allowed me to move on to the next.

Costume jewelry in progress

Sonia Barba links together moments that, for her, have had a transcendental value and that, in fact, have led her from one point to another like a game of mirrors reflecting a beam of light in different trajectories. A game that begins "at the time when in school I started doing theater in extracurricular activities, thus avoiding the regional dance classes my mother wanted to sign me up for – she laughs –. Afterwards, my decision to live in Madrid, buying a drum kit with my first salary, working with Murki López, Guillermo Monge, Ernesto González, Iñigo Munster, Balma and Eva from Las Solex, Olafa Ladousse, Carlos G. de Marcos and a lot of musicians and artists who passed through the independent music distributor Comforte in the early nineties." From there, she put together "a very underground cabaret show and performed in dissident venues inhabited by fantastic beings like the artist Andrés Senra."

The recollection of vital turning points now includes "the recording of Somos Gente with my first group, Los Llamados Perdidos, produced by Justo Bagüeste and Javier Almendral." And she continues: "the fact of taking charge of the Poetic Brothel, in Barcelona, thanks to Kiely Sweatt, the publication of my first poetry collection Dear Pretty Baby, meeting the director, actor and dancer Alberto Velasco…"; and concludes: "Everything is beads on an unfinished costume jewelry necklace."

--- Up to here, what you have done professionally and artistically. And personally?

--- On a more personal level, I would highlight coming to Barcelona and the decision to become a mother, which marked a before and after of absolutely everything.

The life that excites

Currently focused on finding a festival where she can premiere her next piece of scenic experimentation, on finishing her third poetry collection, and on carrying out the training cycles she has begun to offer through the Poetic Brothel, Sonia Barba confesses to be getting "headfirst into the audiovisual world" to interpret powerful characters. In this regard, she extends a request: "please, people who write fiction, make scripts in which women over forty are real and have weight beyond being the protagonist's mother."

In addition to all these projects, for this adopted Barcelona native, continuing to develop and learn is a priority: "To keep dancing, discovering music, authors, people who look at the world from the margins and are enthusiastic about life."

---And Barcelona? Does it excite you?

"I think I started to love it unconditionally after the Rambla attacks," she replies, before recalling a couple of aspects that are not to her liking: "When I arrived in Barcelona, it killed me every time I went to take out books from the Library and all the ones I wanted to read were only in Catalan." She scans the bar visually and adds: "And the fact that they don't serve a tapa with a drink in bars still hurts my soul!" she exclaims.

---Speaking of tapas, would you like to eat something? Portions? Menu?

---If the menu includes a meat-free dish that isn't just a poorly made salad, then menu--, she replies with a knowing smile.