India Martínez: "It is an honor to be a 'Saura girl'"

We meet at noon last Thursday in a room of a very fine hotel located just opposite the Infanta Isabel Theater in Madrid, where, 12 hours ago, the voice of India Martínez has raised the hearts, and buttocks, of an audience full of authorities and celebrities from politics and culture, interpreting and singing Lorca on stage.

The death of the play's director, Carlos Saura, just five days before, had added expectation and emotion to the premiere, and, supposedly, an extra dose of pressure on its protagonist.

The artist appears beautifully made up, dressed in a tight lemon yellow jumpsuit and combed with a high tight ponytail that honors the exoticism that earned her the nickname of

that they gave her when she was little at school.

Martínez is still excited, she admits while showing on her mobile the last conversations she had with Anna Saura, the director's daughter, while her father was alive, with photos where she can be seen supervising the rehearsals on video from her domestic bed. .

She is moved to see him.

How did you sleep?

I haven't fallen asleep until 7 in the morning.

It always takes me a couple of hours to get to sleep after a concert, but this has been the night with the most excitement and adrenaline of my life.

Everyone was nervous, but I had a strange poise.

I felt the energy of Carlos [Saura] guiding me.

I was calm, but excited.

With

, which my father sang, and with the final version of

, which I sang for Carlos at his funeral, I almost broke down.

President Pedro Sanchez.

Juantxo López de Uralde, from United We Can.

Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, from Vox.

He had the entire parliamentary public arc.

Was it for Saura, for Lorca, for you?

I think because of the mix of everything.

Lorca was not from either side and he was a friend of everyone.

It's the same for me.

It's a mystery, but when I sing, I feel connected to everyone, without any barriers.

Art has that.

Do you have red lines in politics?

Evil, injustice and denying that all human beings are equal.

I can't stand that saying that you're one of the good ones and the other one of the bad ones.

My parents, a mechanic and a housewife, taught me to look at the king, or the president, or the people in my neighborhood who had drug problems in the same way.

I have that engraved on fire.

Now that girl, Jenifer Yésica Martínez, who sang on the beach, fills stadiums.

Does she feel strange to her?

The origin marks you, anchors you to the ground, I know that I cannot go further down than that.

At first it was a kind of ballast.

There were those who told me not to say where I came from, but I know where I come from, that I am a good person, that I wanted to make my way, and I was going with the truth ahead.

But sometimes they looked down on me.

Even at school I felt rejection.

They called me the gypsy girl, the Cordoba woman.

Did you study Lorca at school?

A language teacher, Alberto, was especially fond of me and would make me recite poetry in front of the class.

It can be said that those were my artistic beginnings, because first I recited, then I danced and then I started to sing.

From a very young age I was attracted to the musicality of words.

I met Lorca later, singing.

And now

him on stage.

The stars have aligned.

Is he so sensitive to everything?

Sometimes too much.

As a child, my father told me that he had come into this world to break people's shells with my music, because he felt that every time I sang, whoever listened to me, whoever they were, of any race, age or ideology, would shut up. and forgot who he was.

That is my mission in this life.

Thrill your neighbor?

Yes. I don't leave a concert until I feel that the people have freed themselves, relax, laugh, cry, dance, get excited and that shame and modesty that society imposes on us is removed.

And you also free yourself?

Completely.

Singing heals and heals me.

I need it.

I can't go long without doing it.

I sing alone at home and those are my best concerts.

I am very in love with life.

For release, your photos on networks.

Every time she publishes one in a bikini, praise and

It's just natural.

In the networks I show what I want to show.

I am a reserved person, but there are days when I share things that I don't tell my partner, my parents or my sisters.

And I don't consider nudes so intimate.

It's me, no more.

In other times I have felt more insecure, but now I feel much better, with much less insecurities and I want to show myself as I am.

A woman on the beach, or in the pool, just like that.

I have sneaked a nipple into a photo on Instagram [shows it on the mobile].

Since I'm wearing a lace dress, it's not visible to the naked eye, but it's seen through the lace and they haven't noticed.

So you can see that the scandal is not in one but in whoever is watching.

She started singing when she was very young, but in 'Lorca de Saura' she debuted as an actress at 37. Is it never early or late?

I had done a casting for an actress in a series, and they had rejected me, for not giving the profile.

Now I think it's a good thing they did, because debuting with Saura was the right time and the right person.

I have been performing songs all my life, and although at first I hesitated for fear of not measuring up and believing that it was starting the house on the roof and with bigger words, I accepted it, because I knew that that was inside me and I wanted to get out , but it had not yet been the moment.

For me, working with him on this work has been a before and after.

Saura has made me grow 10 centimeters.

What did he feel when he himself chose her as his last muse?

When he did

, I was a kid, I saw it in the cinema, and I told my parents that I wanted to be there, that this is what I wanted to do, that he should have asked me.

When I met him it was like on the same frequency.

We spoke the same language.

It's an honor to be a 'Saura girl', so sorry.

When I was confident enough with him, I told him about my childish tantrum because he wouldn't have called me then...

... And what did he say?

That he had been slow to ask me, but that he finally did.

LORCA, SAURA, INDIA.

Jenifer Yésica Martínez (Córdoba, 37 years old), India for the scene, began to sing from a very young age.

The daughter of a mechanic and a housewife, she changed schools four times, between the humble neighborhood of Córdoba where she grew up, and Roquetas de Mar (Almería), where her family emigrated to seek better living conditions.

In love with the flamenco that she heard from her grandfather, she herself asked her parents to introduce her to the children's talent scout program Veo,

, by Teresa Rabal, where she began her artistic career at the age of 13. her.

soundtrack

.

Her debut as an actress in the play

It has meant, in his own words, a before and after in his career.

Just released it in Madrid

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