Like a good Iberian drag queen,
tanned by wagging the Jury's bata de cola
, Lola Flores and so many others, José Ignacio Galán (La Línea de la Concepción, Cádiz) looked for a name with which to eat Chueca with his little joke, his little bit of genius, his little bit of sin.
Nacha la Macha began almost as a toy baptism
, as a character to make ends meet in this Madrid where everyone lands with an empty stomach and a head full of birds, as the canons dictate, and has ended up becoming a celebrity .
Even in Mexico they have filled theaters
with such a celebrity name, to the beat of his coplas.
The never seen in the transvestite thing.
«I had studied dramatic art in Seville and wanted to be an actor, and when I arrived in Madrid in 2003, instead of standing behind a bar to serve drinks, which is what thousands of actors who were waiters did here,
I chose the world of transformism
», he explains.
“That allowed me to get on stage.
And
that's when I had to create a character
».
This is how Nacha was born.
Nacha la Macha.
And although
Chueca was no longer that neighborhood torn apart by heroin in the 80s
, it still had a few chapters left to enthrone itself as the great LGTBI paradise that it has become.
«I have come to hear on TV, in gossip programs, how a famous person was told: 'Shut up, they've seen you in Chueca...'.
As if that were a bad thing », he recalls.
"
Today it's no longer that gay-only ghetto that people have to sneak into
."
Times have changed so much that two of the greatest exponents of our most Spanish art
have jumped on the LGTBI train to the delirium of the collective
.
The first, María del Monte, who with her coming out of the closet in the proclamation of the Pride of Seville put in the limelight a hitherto taboo subject: the alleged sexuality of some folkloric women, speculated for decades.
The second,
Isabel Pantoja, whose massive performance at the last Madrid Pride still resonates
in the suburbs of the Plaza de España.
Are we facing a giant step or, perhaps, is it opportunism?
«
I do not criticize that María del Monte has had to wait for the year 2022
to take the step.
I praise her gesture and I wish more people like her did.
But if she has done it, it is thanks to the fact that many artists have been there working without hiding, fighting for inclusion and defending our sexual freedom
.
And now the fruits are being reaped
.
What is clear is that being LGTBI, today, adds instead of subtracting.
Nacha, who continues to defend the Cañí magic of cross-dressing against the American invasion of the term
drag
,
has based her career on cultivating copla
.
And she is not daunted, even, before the word
transvestite
, often reviled and taken to the hostile territory of contempt, jokes, ridicule.
Twice a herald at Madrid's Gay Pride, this year
she presented, together with Martínez-Almeida, the poster for the San Isidro Festival
, and later performed in Pradera before 5,000 people.
-
What was a girl like you doing in a place like that?
- After many years doing Orgullos, suddenly I am asked to give a concert at the Madrid festival.
It has been very nice that the City Council has me for an event that is not necessarily LGTBI.
A good artist should not be labeled in one game or another.
A good artist is.
- Do not want to send any message to any political party? Since you've taken a run with this of the proclamations...
-More than sending a message to a politician, I give the message to the citizens.
We are free to vote for whoever we want to represent us, and obviously
I am not going to give my trust to a political activist of homophobia
, as there clearly is.
Luckily, the vast majority of Spaniards do not want that, because that transcends being on the left or on the right.
It is about turning our backs at the polls on those who promote hatred and discrimination based on sexual orientation.
I explained myself well?
-
And that you are going to change the bata de cola for the habit?
- I owe everything to Nacha, but working every night in Chueca was not my peak.
I had already done a farewell tour of drag and was immersed in the Paco España theater performance, from glory to oblivion, for which I received the Replica Award for Performing Arts, when Nacho Cano crossed my life and offered me the role of Olmedo, the priest who accompanies Hernán Cortés, in the musical Malinche.
What a gift!
But I will always be an artist, with or without Nacha
: on a cinema screen, in a bar or in a cabaret.
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