Alba Segarra: "In a town there is a very great freedom because there is a community that cares"

Alba Segarra (la Fuliola, 1992) has a WhatsApp group that she uses to send each other audios with ideas that sometimes seem brilliant to her and others incomprehensible. The warm-up act for Versió RAC1 and stand-up comedian considers herself a workaholic, a way of relating to the world that, she assures, comes from home.

She comes from a family of farmers.

— My life cannot be understood without the land. The land is inside the house and the house is on the land. It is not just the profession, but the way of living.

In what sense this effect?

— The land affected everything: moods, schedules, rhythms... If there was a hailstorm that destroyed the fruit three weeks before harvesting, there was bad humor at home from the previous hours, when you saw the clouds coming... I was young and already restless. In a farmhouse, and especially in a farmer's life who has lived it like my father – passion and profession – it is difficult to disconnect work from personal life.

And his mother?

— She had the village nursery and became a farmer later. All this inventive, creative part of me comes from a completely artistic mother: a person who took you to the IMAX at Port Vell without leaving Fuliola. I remember my whole childhood with a very present mother: she used to paint our t-shirts, play the guitar for us, any space was an excuse to play.

Did wine also form part of this family life?

— My father drank wine from a porró. And he gave me a sip. He told me: "With wine, your blood runs faster". And I was always in favor of anything that made my body go a bit more full throttle.

Has kept the custom?

— No, I can't do it well and I'm very sorry. There are people who do wonders with the jug. My father was incredible. He would put the stream almost to his forehead and then it would fall... In my case, swallowing while drinking will always be a disaster.

And the wine: white or black?

— White. I still don't know which I like more –fruity or dry–, but I always have a bottle in the fridge.

How do you choose it?

— At home I have had a lot of education in consuming local products and I am increasingly wary of km 0. I choose that they are not sparkling or needle, neither too dry nor too fruity. My favorite is Auzells. If a friend has very good news, or very bad news and a day of support is needed: an Auzells. And something more superficial that will make me lose all credibility: the label.

We love labels.

— There are gorgeous labels. A wine I've bought many times is Gessamí: the bottle is incredible, the label is very good. But Auzells has stolen my heart: they could put it in a plastic bottle and I'd buy it anyway.

Any recent discoveries?

— I discovered the wines of Lanzarote recently, when I went there on a trip with my partner. The vine does not grow vertically, it grows horizontally, towards the ground, protected by a wall of black stone… We drank a very good white wine: Yaiza. We tasted it and said: "We don't want to taste any other".

Has worked in restoration.

— I have worked as a bar waitress, as a restaurant waitress... The summer of the pandemic, I worked at the village restaurant, which was opened by a chef with an international career who wanted to return to Ponent. He made a tasting menu on Fridays, a lot of product, without fuss. I loved accompanying it, taking great care to make the experience complete. The service makes me return to places.

Has any restaurant stolen your heart?

— El Guixot, in El Raval. You only had to go once and they knew who you were. I remember I went there at a bad time for love and I was crying and the waiter told me: "Oh! Today we'll put a lot more chocolate on the nougat ice cream", because he knew I loved nougat ice cream. I went from crying to saying: "I am loved!"

And barmaid?

— We took over the Fuliola swimming pools when we were twenty-two years old with two good friends. It was the best summer of my life. During the main festival, the bar was open for 72 consecutive hours: we took turns, our mothers brought us lentils... The whole town got involved: on the last day, we organized a dinner at the pool and everyone had to come in white. We thought they wouldn't pay attention to us, but the whole town came in white. We hired a DJ. I was dancing, my friends were dancing... And we said: "If the three of us are dancing, who's at the bar?" People were serving themselves.

Did they also do shows?

— At the winter festival, the Escala en hi-fi was held, a show where each person prepared a performance of a singer with whom they had a resemblance, a "reasonable resemblance".

Who made it?

— From David Bisbal. I was doing the Ave Maria with my dancer friends. I remember they had done the warm-up and I hadn't yet. At one point when I didn't know what to do, I went down to the audience to sing –it's all playback–. The next day I thought: "I really liked being on stage". We were children aged 9 to 12 and we already knew we could put on an event for the town festival. We decided the songs, the costumes, the script. We filled the sports center with an audience…

Does the people teach to be autonomous?

— In a village there is great freedom because there is a community that takes care. When I went alone to my best friend's house, at six years old, I knew nothing could happen to me: everyone was a responsible adult for me. But just as if I did something wrong, anyone would scold you. If I ever have a family, it will be in Barcelona. And I will miss that my children do not have this freedom.

Let's go to the scenarios. What usually happens there?

— Beer. The other day I performed for the first time with a glass of white wine, at Vi en Viu. L'Olivera cooperative has very good wine. But it's a world that is still very much related to beer. I never drink before a performance.

Why?

— I have the feeling that I won't perform well, I won't pronounce well, I'll stumble. Once on stage, I always have a beer – maybe non-alcoholic. It serves me well as an excuse to stop and drink. Sometimes I've seen in videos that I pick up the beer and put it back down, because I didn't want to drink, I just needed to grab something.

How does it form? That is to say, how is it done to be funnier tomorrow than today?

— Mmmm. Every teacher has their own way of doing things. But I would say that you don't have to go on stage to be funny, but with the will to have a good time. If you are relaxed, if you don't judge yourself, if you enjoy yourself, the audience relaxes, enjoys, has a good time. Maybe it's not a roar of laughter, but they are at ease. Charlie Pee said something that I really liked: "I talk about what makes me laugh. If anecdotes amuse me or ants obsess me – she was talking about ants in her last show – that's mine".

It was once like David Bisbal...

— Exactly. I won't pretend to be someone I'm not.