Ruth Diaz Madrid

Madrid

Updated Friday, March 22, 2024-00:04

Photographer, producer, cultural manager, former manager, programmer, also an actress since last year... "Except singing, I have two left ears, I have done everything,"

May Fernández

(Madrid, 1968) lists with a smile. Although her most brilliant achievement - to date, because she exudes unstoppable enthusiasm - was opening La Sala Mayko, in the Chopera

neighborhood

. And maintain it. After three credits, no subsidy - "we must be the only room in the world in Madrid that does not have one" -, the downturn of the pandemic and a setback that ended up being "the turning point." Just what loosened her wings.

“We rose like the Phoenix

,” she proudly recalls. This year, they celebrate ten in the Madrid off scene.

When talking about this 230 square meter space, with a lobby decorated in duet with the set designer

Rodolfo Velasco

and that differentiates them from their neighbors in these streets in the Off-West End of London, he does so as if listing the achievements of the progeny. Well, the celebration is a double toast. «It is the first time that we have an organic audience, which does not come only from the artist or someone known to anyone.

They come, they repeat and they triple

.

Although in

2014

, his original intention was, rather, to find his own studio. «As a photographer, she shared one with others and it was a disaster, every day it was somewhat broken. Searching for many premises, we found this one, which was previously a theater cabinet. "When I saw the space, I fell in love." Such was the crush, that it grew beyond the photography set, today on the second floor, and it occurred to him that it could also serve as a support and stage for his daughter

Patricia Peñalver

, actress, and for his son, Alejandro, who does continue in the technical part of the room. The idea led to a premiere: her own, as a cultural manager, through trial and error. «I have learned to know my limits. I know what I can do and where I say: 'This is not a joke.' So I try to bring in specialists to make the project their own and provide support to artists. Thus, in the second year,

La Mayko Producciones

was born .

“We wanted to do different things,” he proclaims. And they started with the blind theater, where the public attended performances with masks. «

It was a bombshell

. I thought I had discovered Cola-Cao, but it turns out that in Argentina they had been doing it for I don't know how many years. She continued with

Amor con Seltz

(2018), a play co-authored with

Javier Reche

and directed by

Agustina Bottinelli

, which they presented at the Surge Festival and on its poster. Next up, the Lírica al Margin Festival, now in its seventh edition, to "bring opera and zarzuela closer" to the alternative circuit. The performers, who can be heard singing with panache behind the curtain, landed with their rehearsals after the closure of another room. «

I fell in love with opera. "I always wanted to go, but with those prices they have at Real...

When dealing with them, I thought: 'How wonderful,' and we came up with the festival."

Although it has been the Mayko Concerts, intimate candlelight recitals for no more than 40 people, that have raised his fame. «

I realized the shortcomings of Candlelight.

"They are exceptional, the locations are brutal, they serve you very well, but they are very large spaces and you have many acoustic problems." On the other hand, she has achieved that "people can relate to the musician, they are at his fingertips", since the spectator chooses his seat upon arrival, in that effort of a treatment that she calls "exclusive, in detail."

Perhaps the reason that, when in 2022 they ran out of air conditioning and decided to liquidate due to the impossibility of paying the 12,000 euros for repairs, they were saved by the public, after publishing a video recounting the incident. Even Nacho Bonacho, from the

Sala Tarambana

(Carabanchel) lent them 1,000 euros. «We had such a response... I cried all day about the air, because it was throwing eight years away, and then, with joy.

We got 75% of the money. I discovered what The Mayko Room is for people. It was so emotional...

I myself devalued us, I thought we were the stepping stone to other spaces. With the reform, I said: 'For people it is important.' They resurfaced, and there is no going back from there.

DNA

- The Mayko room is on General Palanca Street, 7.

- 'Mayko' means apprentice geisha.

- Maykiso is his stage name.

- He acted in the play 'Toda una vida'.