 Although Roma are the largest minority in Europe, they still experience high level of racism and have to deal with many societal issues. Additionally, Roma are being represented in a very stereotypical way in the media and the art world. The Roma theater has more than a century long past with active professional theater groups in many European countries, but unfortunately, they are still hardly known. The Roma Heroes Theater Festival, initiated by the independent theater hungry, is the only international Roma theater encounter in the world, which have been organized in every year since 2017. Some of the present artists and their work are introduced in our series. And today my guest is Sonja Carmona, the performer of the play called The Profunda Dignitatis. And the writer of the play couldn't make it for the interview. I'm really sorry about that. But Sonja, how are you? Oh, I'm fine. You know, just dealing with all the new normality that we have around the whole world. Yes, so my first question. First of all, I want to thank you. Just first I want to thank you and thank HowlRound to give us the opportunity to just be able to showcase our work to a really wide audience, which I think is, as you said, one of the things that we need. Yes, it's a very good opportunity. I agree. So if you are ready, my first question, would you please summarize very briefly what is the play about? Okay, it's not easy. It's not an easy question plus to do it briefly. It's even more difficult, but The Profunda Dignitatis is a mystery. It's a mystery play. It's about the deepest part of the soul of the human being. And this is done by dealing with the real lives of two Roma women who lived during the times of the Civil War in Spain. But everything is embodied in one character that goes from one layer to another layer, even going from a fantastic kind of theater to a sci-fi kind of quite surrealistic dive into questioning about who you are and your dignity and how far you're willing to go without being untruthed to yourself. If that makes any sense. Thank you. And can you also share what's the most challenging and the most pleasant part of the play for you? Well, the most challenging part is to be on the stage for almost two hours just by yourself and having a really wide emotional range that the character goes through. The character is like an onion that you are peeling throughout the play and it has sweet moments, sour moments, moments of self-realization, moments of total craziness, total quietness and to be able to make this in a very organic way and inviting the little roller coaster that you get on is at the same time challenging, but also it is a great candy that this play means for an actress. Thank you. So I would say that, you know, the emotional range and being, you know, having to be able to wrap the audience with you and have it with you all the time breathing, sweating with you and going through what this woman is going and understanding the path that is going on in this play. It's not an easy play, it's not nothing like a be a pick or something like that. Could you also share some sentences? Yeah, I would say that. Your artwork and your principles in your artwork? Sure. Well, I think that I would say is most important for me and also for Jaime, I think, is all the poetic world. To be able to go into another metaphorical level in which the communion with the audience is so that you can really have this catharsis. It's not just about entertainment, but it also has to be entertaining for the audience, but it has to kind of grab you and make you feel all the emotions with the audience that is coming to see the performance. So I think this is very important that we go beyond, like beyond reality towards some metaphorical world. And also for me, and I think also for Jaime, it is important to have the truth. Well, what is the truth? But to have this path in finding the questions, at least the questions, questioning the established thoughts and questioning even yourself. So I would say that this is important in our work. It's always been, you know, so it's important to try to give a divergent way of thinking to... So this contrasting world of reality and not reality and where is the thin line that goes from one to the other. I think it's a quality or something that defines our work. Because I think this play, the Profunda Dichnitatis is one of three. There are three plays. It's a trilogy. And this one, the Profunda Dichnitatis was written by Jaime for me as an actress, which also I think makes... It wasn't just written for anyone. It was written by the author thinking about, you know, and we know each other for a long time. And so I think it's also something that makes it at least for me special. Thank you. And I would also like to ask you that who and what inspired or motivated you during your life and also in your career? Do you mean in theater or you mean like just motivation to get up in the morning? Both, also in theater and also in your life. Well, I was in a way, I guess, lucky to be born at the end of the Franco era here in Spain, even though I was born in Cologne in Germany because my parents were emigrants. But during the 80s, this country, Spain, was living kind of like a revolution, cultural, freedom-wise. People were eager for seeing new things. So I was really lucky that where my parents lived in the building that we lived in Granada, our neighbor on the fourth floor was her mother. I was very good friends with Begonia and her mother was Margarita Caffarena. Margarita Caffarena was a crucial person in my life. She was the person in charge of the International Granadas International Theater Festival that went on for maybe like 10 years and this was like fresh air coming into our world. And because I was very good friends with her daughter, she always brought us along to everything. So I had the opportunity when I was very, very young, maybe like 12, 13, to see, I don't know, like people like Pina Bausch to see people. Companies like Dance and Roses, Dance and Roses, many La Fura del Sbaus, many companies that really opened to a little kid that I was, opened a whole world that made me definitely want to be part of the theater world and to try to find my own way of expressing and communicating my inner world. And of course my parents have also been a big influence. My father likes art a lot and I remember going just when I was very, very little. This would be like maybe when I was five or something like that. He would grab me by the hand because I'm the third of four kids. And my oldest brother and sister, they were always just finding excuses to not go along with my father to see all the art galleries in Granada. So he would go and be watching all these paintings and all this artwork and this has been also a very big influence. And also, you know, listening to in my house to many different languages, because of course, you know, my parents were in Germany, but before my father was in Tanjir. And you know, listening to all these languages and having all this kind of like on the move kind of feeling at home was also a big influence. You know, I would say that theater and traveling are just on the both, you know, the level of importance in my life. Thank you for sharing that. And I would also ask you, what do you think about Roma theater? What does it mean to you? Do you consider it necessary to have? Okay, well, this is something that has lots of sides to it. Because to me, I would love that we did not have to talk about Roma theater, black theater, brown theater, yellow theater or any kind of theater. I would like to just talk about good theater, and especially if I could just about good theater, nothing else. But to me, Roma theater, what has brought to me personally has been a questioning of myself, of my identity. I think I was one of this, what could call the invisible Roma, or like we say in Spain, Hedanos. In fact, I never wanted to be called, you know, Hedana. This was like, you know, I was not Hedana, for sure, because we never talked about this. This was very taboo in my house. So this has made me question myself, who am I? What is it to be a Roma? I don't know. It's being like an initiative or initiation trip. You know, I wish that, as I said, we did not have to label our theater, but on the other hand, I'm sure that by labeling it, also we are able to raise awareness and to raise questions. The same, you know, that it happened to me, because it is almost incredible that we are in the 21st century, and we're still, you know, it's almost like not seem really like badly, or that, you know, that Roma people still in Europe are one of the most, you know, stigmatized. So I think it's, it's unfortunately necessary. Thank you. I think you shared very important points now. And lastly, my question would be, what is your future plan, your goals regarding your career? Well, when I was studying theater, they always told us that if we were able to survive, that this was, you know, always like a plus that if we were able to keep on going in the theater world and not to have to be getting other kind of jobs to make a survival, that this was already a big success. So, right now with all the pandemic and with all that is going on and culture always being, you know, the one that is left like it was not utile or not useful as if we could, you know, take culture away from life. Right now, I'm lucky enough to have many projects going on. I'm working in Polygonosur, here in Sevilla, where we are living, which is one of the most stigmatized neighborhoods I think in the whole of Europe. And I am working with them with a group of 17 young boys and girls from this neighborhood on a project called Roots and Wings, a human library of the Polygonosur. And so we will be making a human library with theater, we will be doing a performance, but we have been collecting stories from the oldest people in the area. And it is a really, really interesting process that we are going and hopefully this will be done by November 14, when we want to premiere our performance and hopefully, you know, you guys will be able to also see what this young people do. Also, we are doing a web series also with independent theater, which has been a trip, because I had never done anything like that. So it's been really fun. And I am doing a series for Eriak, called Amor Roma, in which I am investigating about six different Roma women and, you know, dealing with love and, you know, trying to break down all the stereotypes that are linked to Roma women and the way they take love into So that's it. Thank you. These are very interesting points and very interesting goals and you have done a lot of work that you can do. So, okay, do you have anything that you want to add, that you think that you want to say but you forgot or you didn't have the chance? I just really hope that you like the performance that we bring to you. I don't like too much when theater is not seen in the theater or in a place where, you know, we can breathe together but at least this is an opportunity to be able to see, you know, performance, even though if you are far away. So just, I hope that you can breathe with me, laugh with me and go along on the roller coaster with the Prefunda Dignitatis and I hope that it raises questions to you and that you are curious about these women, these Roma women that, you know, lived and were faced to these challenges during the Franco or the Civil War. Thank you for the discussion. Thank you very much. And now you can see the performance called the Prefunda Dignitatis created by Jaime Vicenbo Horquez and performed by Sonja Carmona. Enjoy the show.