Isabel Do Diego
Isabel Do Diego – alter ego of Andalusian artist Juan Diego Calzada – develops, in both her musical and stage work, an austere, brutalist, and sacralised folklore.
The electronic quejío of Isabel Do Diego opens a body in flight, sketching a new perspective on Andalusian folklore. Her music is a folkloric prosthesis that transcends the spaces flesh cannot inhabit. A hybrid being. A body that, on stage, walks between the human, the animal, and the spiritual.
Between rural familiarity and futuristic estrangement, Isabel Do Diego inhabits a scenic universe of screams and whispers, of traditional melodies alongside fractured sonorities, of rural and industrial echoes, of heretical messages and prayers, of sexual fantasies and chaste emotions. And many beats, samplers, and synthesizers. Her singing and dancing are monstrous, marked by sacralised electronics. A stage trompe-l’œil that, as allegory, is neither rational nor classifiable, but instead reveals the mystery we keep beneath the skin in the form of a musical ceremony.
In March 2020 she released Depueblo, her first album. It was included in the exhibition Romper el Aire by Pedro G. Romero at the Alarcón Criado gallery in Seville and chosen among the ten best roots music albums of the year by Mondo Sonoro magazine. She appeared at several festivals such as Monkey Week (Seville), Flamenco viene del Sur (Seville), and Sâlmon (Barcelona).
She was also artist-in-residence at SONORIDAD.ES 2020–2021, curated by Daniel Valtueña for the KJCC in New York.
In March 2022 she released Bestia Sagrada, her second album, which closes with a collaboration with Maria Arnal on the final track Cataliza. The live debut of this second work premiered at Centro Conde Duque (Madrid) and later travelled to Festival La Orgullosa (Barcelona), Córdoba Ciudad de las Ideas, La Madraza in Granada, Flamenco EÑE Off in Madrid, Festival MIL in Lisbon, and MaF in Málaga.
In April 2023 she released Rozadura, a six-track EP developed during a residency and concert series at the Flora Festival in Córdoba in 2022. It was presented live in three emblematic courtyards of Córdoba’s Historic Quarter (Patio del Palacio de Orive, Patio de Las Campanas, and Patio de San Basilio).
In March 2024 she released her first vinyl, A carne viva · A concert in vinyl format, recorded and cut live by Alhaja Records. The vinyl-concert took place in the Noble Hall of the Convent of Sant Agustí, Barcelona. In November 2024 she released Gozo Jondo, her second EP with six tracks developed during the Los Tientos residency in Granada in 2023. Its stage-concert version premiered at Teatros del Canal, Madrid.
