If you have to quickly define Joan Estrada (75 years old), it is enough to say And he is comfortable with this concept. A bit communist and a bit libertarian – “I find a painting of Marx and Bakunin kissing missing” – there are many corners that cannot be explained without him and his friends. Founder with Roba Estesa of the Venus Dome in 1978, he ran that sanctuary of alternative revelry for eight years, whose building, until 1906, had been the respectable headquarters of the Ateneu. Pepe Rubianes, Loles León, Rafael Álvarez performed at the Dome The WitcherÁngel Pavlovsky, Oriol Tramvia, Gato Pérez, Christa Leem, muse of Joan Brossa…. “The place was discovered to us by Ocaña, who knew it because Bigas Luna had presented there Tattoo. The president of billiards Monforte, who occupied the entire space, helped us a lot. He left us the dome as the cultural section of the club. That’s where it all started.” People worked at the box office. “We had very good shows and a lot of churros, but you ended up loving the good ones and the bad ones. We were a family. Not having money encourages affection.” The history of the Cúpula and of Estrada himself is deposited in the Lafuente Archive that temporarily houses the Reina Sofía. Photos, dresses, a book dedicated by Brossa and, the jewel in the crown, the fan that Ocaña painted. “I was at his house with another friend. He took out a pot and asked us to put our sperm. Then he mixed it with paint and made the fan he aptly titled Afternoon of light sources”.
