Teresa Yanet: from HBO to Pilar de Atarés, with her experience and her voice

Teresa Yanet Senra is a woman who was born and began to sing in an impoverished neighborhood, in a house that was once terribly flooded. He is 30 years old and on Tuesday, June 15, 2021, he appeared for the first time in an HBO program. And this, I believe, is not a small thing. 

It was in the documentary Revolution Rent, which tells the story of when Andy Señor Jr., the son of Cuban exiles, returned to the country of his roots to stage a national version of Rent, successful Broadway musical written by Jonathan Larson. It was the year 2014 and Teresa decided to audition, along with hundreds of singers. In the end, after a casting very demanding, she won the role of Joanne Jefferson, a character who, she says, “believes that she is in control of everything, but in the end her feelings lead her, as it happens to me”. 

I remember that when Teresa was first told to me, she was presented as a natural force of charisma and transparency. Unfortunately, in these uncertain and dangerous times marked by the pandemic, I was unable, as I would have liked, to visit her, record an interview and check it out in person. Even so, Teresa answered my questions via WhatsApp for two days in a row, telling me her story and I think they were the most detailed answers I've seen in a while.

Hundreds of people enjoyed his performance at the functions of Rent at the Café Teatro del Brecht, or at one of the 80 stalls cats, at the Old Havana Amphitheater, where she played Grizzabella. However, it is most likely that most will remember her as one of the finalists of the third and so far last edition (2017) of Playing in Cuba, disappeared in recent years from television that appeared on our screens in 2015 and that imitated, with some innovative elements, the worldwide replicated concept of the vocal talent contest television format.

But before that, before singing in public and being recognized, the girl Teresa grew up in Pilar de Atarés in Cuatro Caminos, Cerro municipality, in Havana. A place that "he has learned to love", although his effort has cost him. "Here people go fast and many times I feel like I don't belong," he tells me. “In the end you find that anywhere. On many occasions it suffocates me… I don't know”.

 —What was it like in your childhood?

—I remember all that time with more sorrows than glories. My mom had gone to Argentina for three months and the trip ended up being a year. I was left alone with my grandmother and it was a hard time. I missed her too much. I particularly remember one day when it started to rain very hard and the current went away. My house is very big and downstairs, which was where my grandmother lived, it filled with water. Right now I have the scene in my head: her and I sitting in the living room watching things navigate from one side to another inside the house. That blackout was eternal. That was so sad for me...

—And what happened when your mom came?

-Music. My mother sang the songs of Mirian Hernández in all the downloads (it is as if she saw her singing The man I love). Although I was little, I remember it very in tune. Now she doesn't do it so well, she always tells me she's a frustrated singer. She sees in me what could not be. And I think that's a nice thing. 

***

When she started high school, Teresa lived with her cousin, her mother, and her grandmother in a matriarchal home. Her first references were diverse, unconnected, like the ideas and emotions of a teenager her age. I listened to Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés the same as Andy and Lucas, Cristian Castro or Pimpinela; while learning by inspiration old songs by Mayra Caridad Valdés, Elena Burke or Lourdes Torres.

On a cassette recorder that he still has, he fell asleep every night to the vibrancy of Boyz II Men. And it is likely that those sessions were a turning point, one of those moments that greatly influence the decisions one makes in life. “Those beautiful voices, the subtlety. I was always discovering something new in the same songs.”

When she turned 14, her mother decided that she should guide her professionally; take her by the hand, secure her future, fulfill the wishes that her daughter hadn't told her about and that she knew through her mother's intuition. He enrolled her, without her knowledge, in the Palace  of National Lyric Theater, school attached to the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory. At that time, Teresa was not sure about singing professionally; in fact, she was very careful that her mother listened to her. She had decided to study to be an English teacher, because she was always good at languages, since she was little, when she learned the hits of 90s American rap. But his mother's actions changed everything.

— I imagine that in the school of lyrical singing you have done very well.

—They were about to kick me out of school because I really was a dud. I suffered a lot, especially for my mom, who had sacrificed so much for me to get there. In the third year of my degree, I decided that I was going to graduate. I put the batteries and I prepared myself with a very hard program that my teacher Conchita Franqui had given me. It had from the most baroque to the most modern and contemporary. I was student number five in my promotion. 

— It is a versatile formation, without a doubt. But the lyrical singing is very distant, apparently, from what you sang later in Playing in Cuba.

—All that mess influences me every day. I remember doing the First Lady of the opera The magic Flute and from there I went to a bar to sing What did I ask of you? and all those big bolerons. I wanted to learn to interpret Cuban music. I tell you Playing in Cuba it was a very hard experience. Something that attacked the show was the organization. There were a lot of things behind the scenes that I didn't like and didn't understand, but I decided to focus. In all the interviews I say it: I was never interested in an award. I went to do the casting like many talented people and I was chosen. I went looking for knowledge. I already had part of the lyrical technique. Today I don't know if a show like this is to learn. Times go very fast. Perhaps I did not choose the best place to make myself known.

— Did he leave you something?

— Yes, I always learn! And I keep the good. There is no better prize for an artist than the public. That is more than enough and it is something I will be forever grateful for.

— Internally the program was the same as what was shown?

— When you're in there, the days and dates go by, and you're like inside a capsule. It's kind of weird. I never imagined that Dreaming… had the rating of followers that Is incredible! In the end I realized everything. It was like waking up. Many people came with banners and illuminated signs to support me. That has no name! You have to be there to experience it! I am an artist of the people and that makes me proud every day. Playing in Cuba It gave me visibility. Since 2017 it has not gone unnoticed. I have learned that the public saves you or sinks you. I think I've been lucky.

— Although you didn't win, you had a prize...

— The famous prize that so many people ask me about on the street? It never was! that famous trip with him coach and such never happened! The reason I do not know. That is something so punctual in a contest... because people are waiting for that... you know? It is fatal to announce the prizes and that later they are not fulfilled. I didn't care, but what about the public? That bitter taste sticks with people.

— Let's go back a couple of years. tell me about Rent.

—TheRent! I knew musical theater before, from the opera itself and from many pastiches that we made of musical theatre, but Rent It was definitely a twist.

The casting lasted about two months and it was very hard. The Broadway team came to Cuba with the idea of working here in the same way that you work anywhere in the world when you make a musical. That didn't work here! 

— Why? Give me an example.

—every day was cast from any musical part of the play, the same thing I had to learn the duo of Maureen and Joanne, who the next day asked me for a part of any other character. The cast same dance. We were many. All of Havana was there! Go figure! To work in a Broadway production, nothing more and nothing less than Rent!

As the days passed you saw that people were missing... many people stayed on the road. I approved the casting, but not for Joanne's character. I approved as swing. I remember that we were five girls in that category that nobody understood. Later I understood the concept. Be swing, in good Cuban, means learning each female character in the work with everything that this requires and doing a bank until the actor who is on stage something unforeseen happens to him. That's where you come in! In our professional training that does not exist and that hurt a lot of people, starting with me. But along the way I was learning more every day, while preparing myself and studying a lot.

— How did you end up doing Joanne?

—They, from Broadway, saw me from the beginning in the character of Joanne, which was the one I always wanted. I tried hard for him. And so you can see things in life… I premiered that character! Rent It is a work that I have loved from day one, from the story it tells, to the most difficult harmonies. Imagine that we were on the billboard for three months, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That trains you in a huge way. I had days when I thought I wasn't going to be able to sing. It's a train that doesn't stop and you get exhausted… but the energy of the public was so beautiful… The Brecht was packed at every performance. I have friends who saw all the presentations. I feel that the public appreciated a lot Rent. Many people still ask me when they will repeat it.

— Did this experience leave you with anything else?

— That's where I learned to be strong.

***

In one of her new projects, Teresa takes a new turn. At least with respect to what we have talked about in this interview. The starting point is a song that deals with how a woman begins to understand that she is in a relationship that hurts her emotionally and how she manages to break the cycle of toxicity and violence. The protagonist manages to end the dependency, move on. The project involves other performing arts, as well as music, and he has asked me not to talk much about it.

It is about personal, intimate stories, about hope and fear, love and violence, faith and resistance. They are, at the same time, incredibly universal stories, where other women are represented, who in the end are herself.

"Composition is a new process in my life," he tells me, "something I'm discovering." When motivated, for Teresa there is no barrier that contains creation. She begins to play with music, to take it out of herself, to play while her mind and inspiration "make her fly" out of her living room, out of solitude and company, out of the world.

His art, he insists, is born from the observation of things that happen to him every day. The characters and themes he writes about are drawn in his mind and then perfected. He says that this new path that has begun to travel has little to do with lyrical singing, the great American musical or Cuban popular music. It's fusion, rap with soul and rumba. All this mixed with the passive force of opera and an extraordinary ability to connect. They are informed songs, which talk about the things that concern women around the world. Personally, it makes me think of the Argentinean Nathy Peluso, who is also, according to her own confession, one of her current influences. 

Teresa is a very honest type of interpreter, who tells you beforehand where she stands. She has an instinctive professional sincerity that is none other than the passion and truth of an artist focused on making sense of life.

As she herself admits, her style is ultimately one that values female empowerment and one that many women she knows identify with. 

“Music is a language and for that reason it is a weapon. It's my weapon! We cannot forget that we are communicators, that from the first chords and the first melody one is sending a message; and if it is accompanied by a good letter, then better. Right now there are many movements advancing with the empowerment of women in music. Women looking to sing and raise their voices. I am a feminist, so why not feel part of that current? I make music for everyone, from my feelings, my sensitivity, with an open heart. Particularly, I think that women are now in a moment of light. Discrimination, fewer opportunities, obstacles, harassment, there has always been. Perhaps in 2021 they will be seen a little less, but they exist.

— How do you think artists can fight against that?

— With what we know how to do, from our music, from our experiences and voices.