How did Poxpolo get started?When I
was a little girl, I loved doing theater and disguised myself as a clown when the circus approached and always asked my grandfather to Tolosa or San Sebastian. When I was 16-17, I was told that at school I needed monitors to make exits, games, etc. with the little ones. I cheered, and with my friend Iñaki, we invented the Poxpolo and Mokolo clowns for the boys and girls of our village. The second year we saw that some children remembered the clowns of the previous year and something was getting stuck inside me.

What's your clown like?
I like sketches, circus clowns. Laughing, suddenly awakening feelings. Feelings always dancing. And I think that is precisely the secret of our Circus, which creates emotion. The most beautiful moment is when you get a smile from a moment to emotion. When viewers tell us that they have laughed and cried, it seems to me that we have achieved the goal. The magic of the circus could solve a topic, but that's it. There are no more words.

People laugh at yourself,
at your situation, when you laugh.

Are we all consumers of humor?
Yes, because it is necessary. Human beings, ourselves, need to liberate and to feel better. But no matter how important it is, they won't give you any prizes for laughing. Maybe I get a prize for speaking in Euskera, but not for making humor. And that would also be painful, because Euskera is my mother tongue. It would be strange if Iker Galartza made a circus in Spanish or French, right? It also seems that the Basques have to show that we are like others, that we give the level of others. And that is that people are still surprised by the presence of Basque artists in circuses. The Basques also know how to make the circus as we win the Olympics.

Does the circus stay far from many people?
And they've given the circus a bad name in the last few decades, among other things because they used animals and, in addition, they took bad care of it. This is extremely damaging to the circus. You usually see something dirty, abandoned and decadent. When I said I had to mount a circus, people would be surprised and told that I was crazy and that was no longer finished.

The circus is a very old thing. The Greeks were already making acrobatics. Here are many artistic manifestations: music, acrobatics, theater, dance... It seems to me that if this has come to our time, for something it will be and will have to follow, but, in our case, in our language.

Does humor always look like something secondary?
Yes, it takes away importance. Sometimes people think there's no work behind it, but if you saw more than one representation, you would realize that there's a lot of effort there, that it's not just thoughts that come up suddenly.

Is the best improvisation written?
Yes. And at the same time you need capacity to leave the script open. You're trying and improving. You have to look for improvisation, but you don't dirty everything. That is, without changing the base or stealing time or protagonism from your companions who accompany you. This is like football: sometimes you prepare a situation very well and another one rekills with a good joke. So the audience feels that at that moment, something has happened only once. Then your thirteen euros of entry make sense. If you record that in the video, the magic of the moment disappears.

We've been offered money for taking the video, but we don't want it, because that's how magic gets lost. It's tempting, but we don't want it. I don't like being a product. I prefer the real moment. The circus is the same: the circus comes to a place where there is nothing, to a meadow, to a lawn, to a parking lot and there will pass thousands of people, who will have very special experiences and then we will collect everything, enter the trucks and leave another place. There will only be a circle on the grass. The same goes for theater.

How did it start on television?
Being in college, on weekends, we continued our clowning performances. A person in charge of the Goenkale series came to a program, liked it and proposed to enter as a writer. Then I started to dumb as an actor, to do replacements or small roles. So I was also called Wow Semanita to become an actor. It was a very hard year, full of emotions, but just in case I kept writing Goenkale. And on weekends, it was the clown Poxpolo.

Then I focused on Wow Semanita and started doing theater, as well as keeping clowning performances. The weekend agendas were huge. Unexpectedly, Mokolo died with a stroke, and then we stayed five in the group, we continued for a while like Poxpolo and the company. Theater, TV -- so I spent 15 years, until I bought the tent.

And from now on only the circus?
I have not made theater for five years, but I will start again in febrero.Ahora that our circus has made its way, it has stabilized, I will return to the theater from January to April, taking advantage of that it is time for the circus to rest. With Zuhaitz Gurrutxaga we will act as Presidential Candidate. I'm lehendakari, and he's my psychologist.

The series Down there made you famous throughout the state. What was that experience like?
The truth is, I had a lot of things, and that was hard. Every Monday, many times on Sunday, I went to Seville to be there until Friday. We also recorded scenes from Euskal Herria.Ven on Friday and many times at night we had theater and another Saturday. I almost didn't see my kids, and I thought it was this to change the moment and bring the tent. It was five seasons, four hard years, but they paid well, and with that I bought the tent.

It was a script full of topics. How did you see your role?
He was a poor man. It was easy to do. The easiest job in the world. We told them that the Basques are not like this, and the Andalusians had the same experience, but it was admitted that this was what sold, and it was done and it was over.

Isn't it contradictory to do it?
Yes, but then you start doing another fine job and maybe the Basques don't come to see you.
The same goes for the issue of working in Spanish. When Wow Semanita finished at ETB, it wasn't fiction, and on TV here there was no work for the actors. We started doing bilingual theater and we went to Castejón, Funes, but then we went to Burgos, Soria, Salamanca, Segovia or Extremadura. The difference was 30 passes or 90 passes. At 30, the salary doesn't come out, at 90 yes.

What do you think of ETB’s behaviour today?
It seems that a year ago we started asking producers for fiction projects. I just recorded a series for young people. It revolves around a female football team, with an elaborate script, showing what girls still have to fight when it comes to sports. This illusion and struggle of the young girls is demonstrated and there is a trainer who does not want to train, that is me... These projects are appreciated. You'll have to do the caserío, etc., because television is entertainment, but you have to bet on fiction. In addition, the young people here see the possibility of being an actor in the Basque Country.

You have done everything. What do you stay with?
Certainly, with one-off actions. If practical, I miss the comfort of a plate, the heating and the coffee machine. But on the other hand, I prefer a more intense rhythm of the circus. Here is always something to do: put the lights right, prepare the tooling, pass the broom, prepare the food, put the flowers in place... you have to spend a lot of time waiting in a recording, in reposo.El body asks you to go.

How have you experienced the pandemic in our Circus?
Thanks to the circus, I would say quite well, because we are like a great family. I told everyone if they wanted to go home from time to time, but directly from there, so as not to have problems. Here we have been alone, as we have always been eating together and quiet. We have always cleaned everything very well, we have been dressed in kisses when people came and we have not had any problema.Eso yes, capacity limitation has been a headache breaker.

Five years ago, at the beginning of the circus, the beautiful tent we bought in Luxembourg was small. Only 125 people could come in, which I didn't give to pay the salary for 20 people, so we decided to get a bigger tent. I rented one for 800 people in Portugal. You couldn't move too much because it was complicated to assemble, and we were only in three places. We saved the season somehow, but in early January we decided to go back and contact the manufacturer of the small tent to order another bigger one, which is what we use now.

How do you picture the future?
Circus.

Is this, therefore, a project of your life?
Yes. Here I enjoy, I'm happy, with a lot of people, with little or even when I'm alone. Those who come behind are demonstrating that they are good and I am quiet for the future. I don't know what our kids are going to do. Our parents had a nursery and we were very rarely going to help us, maybe they would do the same in a few years... but others will come and there will be a succession, and in the meantime on television we would do some series of times, theater... but always respecting the dates here.

What's Iker like?
The most normal person in the world. If I had to say a virtue, I would say that I am a patient and that it is constant. I am not one of those who is easily encouraged and striving. If I say something bad, when I lose my patience, I lose everything at once.

Do you get a lot of jokes on the street?
Yes and I'm bad at telling jokes! But being a clown isn't just fighting and dressing and getting your nose out. Being a clown is an attitude. When people laugh so hard with you they don't want to see you sad and always being humorous is like your obligation. I have been told more than once that I am more serious than I am. And I tell you, I forgive but I'm quiet, nothing else.

Sometimes people think they have the right to ask jokes or to become aware of what you do on television. On the other hand, it's good that if they know you on the street, because that means they see the work you do.

What have the characters given you?The possibility of
saying many things, I wouldn't say as a person. Clowns have a certain permission to be transgressors and I have always liked to go in that limite.Tambiand I like to say the politically incorrect.

Once a city hall forced me to keep ten seats in the front row. We did it counter-current, but they didn't come. So Poxpolo invited the kids who were on the sidelines and at the bottom to sit on that front line and he said, look, politicians do that kind of thing. Now you sit here and you will see everything better. They don't recognize it, but that's why they wanted these seats for them. That cannot be said by Iker Galartza, if not, they will not allow him to mount another circus, but with hairs.