 Yes? I greet the dear audience with great love. I'm Thomas Segedit, the educational leader of the Independent Theatre, the moderator of tonight's conversation. This week, Wednesday, 21st of October, we'll see the start of our fourth International Roma Theatre Festival, the only International Roma Festival on the World, which can be host online this year due to the virus. I would like to thank whole round for their great interest in the festival and the invited artists. It is a great honor to greet the participants of the conversation as well, who will present their work at this year's festival. They are all excellent representatives of the European theatre profession, who also happen to be Roma. Rodrigo Balov from Hungary, Mihaela Dragan and Alex Pifea from Romania, Nebojsa Markovic from Germany, and Simon Ida Selimovic, who will arrive a bit later from Austria, and Richard Ardonio from Scotland. So in the first round, I would like to ask you to introduce yourself and your work in some short sentences. Mihaela? Yes, hi, hello everyone, good to see you. So my name is Mihaela Dragan, I'm an actress and playwright from Romania, and this year I will be participating together with my collective, Jules Le Pen, the Roma Feminist Theatre from Bucharest, with the theatre play Roma Scene, The Age of the Witch. Should I tell you a little bit about the play, or should... Yeah? Okay, yes. So Roma Scene, The Age of the Witch is a theatre play that I've been writing the last year during the residency at Roeliker Theatre in London, and the play tells the story of six Roma techno witches. The play is based on the Roma Futurism concept that I've been developing in the last years, and I should explain a little bit about what Roma Futurism means. Actually, it's a new concept that I tried to introduce, and it creates the interaction between Roma culture and history with technology and witchcraft. So Roma Scene, The Age of the Witch is about a futuristic utopian society where the Roma witches, cyber witches, have the power to control the technology. They control the technology and fight no fascist politics in Europe, and they also have solutions for the climate crisis that we confront nowadays. Do I still have time? If you need some short sentences, yes. Okay, so I'll speak a little bit more about the play. Actually, the plot of the play explains how these six women control the latest technologies and heck breaks it, and they also use quantum physics for time traveling and create hyper-realistic robots and develop new politics in order to fight the no fascism in Europe. Sorry, I don't know how I have to stop. Okay, thank you. This topic will be in the next round. It's close to the next round topic. So thank you, and let's hear Rodrigo. Hi, I'm Rodrigo Balog, artistic director of independence in Hungary. We are Roma and Roma artists who work on such social topics which relate to the lives of all of us. For a long time, we felt kind of alone, but then we discovered that in many countries, there are Roma theatres working, and they usually have very minimal support and very minimal visibility, so we thought that we should start something together. It's important to connect and do something together because together we are stronger. So this is one of the reasons why we organize in every year since 2017 the one and only international Roma theater festival of the world. So in the festival we want to show the diversity of Roma theater and also the values and many challenges of Roma community. In case we learn each other better, understand each other better, maybe we can get more along than we got till now. In case the Roma youngsters can meet Roma dramas and dramatic heroes, we are ensured that they can get empowered and they can be more conscious and successful adults, so this is also very important for us. Thank you, thank you so, and next please Richard. Good evening, my name is Richard O'Neill, I'm a storyteller, a writer and an author, and my interaction with the theater company came about by being asked to add to their the list that they were compiling, a sort of an archive if you will, and then I was working on my own in the north of England and in Scotland and it's a very, very lonely place as a Roma playwright, and then when I found out about the theater company and they asked me to take part in the first festival, it was just absolutely amazing to see all of the work that was going on and it's had so many positive ripples back now into England and it's actually changing Roma theater in England which is especially in time of Covid, is actually quite extraordinary. Thank you, and Alex? Hello, I'm Alex FIFA, I'm one of the five co-authors of the Bambina Queen of Flowers a history show, some kind of history show that tells about the challenges that a woman, a Roma woman, had to face not so long ago in our recent history in Romania. It must be mentioned that Bambina was on an informal level, known as really the Queen of Flowers of Bucharest, that was kind of her nickname. So we followed the story and it is also a very good pretext to look back behind the Roma florists in Romania community's history and it unveils how they survived later into these days. Unfortunately, under the very, very colorful occasion of the commemoration of this Bambina lady, a lady florist, well under this pretext of meeting and remembering her name and her good deeds in life, we kind of track also the history of the florists in Romania and it must be said that it's not been easy, it hasn't been easy on them during our history since in Romania Roma people were slaves with the longest history of slavery in between the European countries. So we'll dig up a little bit of history and celebrate a very important figure for the Roma culture, even if, as I mentioned before, it was on a more informal level such as a popular figure, but I think this is where we met with the initiative of this festival, its fourth edition, and it's a very big honor for us to be part in this and the idea, the main idea of the festival, of showing up Roma heroes, Roma figures that of course they don't wear cloaks these days, but they do exist and in the communities that are part, they are partying, they are very important figures and figures to be either remembered or followed by all of us today. Thank you so much. Nevo Eša? Slavice, can you, I'm Nevo Eša Markovic and I'm in this Roma literature company and this is my brother Slavice and he will, I'm going to say a couple of words because Nevo Eša had a problem with his accent, he don't speak. Okay, but yes, I want to say, okay, with us is also Rebekah and I want to say the first time because I'm very lucky to see all the people now in this round and this is kind of a dream for us like pioneers also in Berlin in this, in the context Roma and theater. This is the first place and the second, of course I have to say something to our connection to the Roma theater and to festival and I can say at the first place this festival, like I heard it because of Rodrigo and then Simone then so on and this is actually also one of important issues for Nevo Eša and me, like to establish something like this, like international contemporary theater activities of our people and everybody who feels like this and so it's like kind of a dream, it's very nice and the connection to the Roma theater, I was thinking there is no connection with the Roma theater, we are part of Roma theater. I wanted this because actually we grounded Roma et al club theater in Berlin 2005 and 2006, we get some plays, of course like Rodrigo said because we didn't get a lot enough support and then we quit 2013 with the place but idealistic we exist still and this is, I have to say in this time when we came from Yugoslavia here, this was also idea, okay we want to proceed from this point which was interruption in Yugoslavia so we said, okay we make theater and but we didn't make the theater like something from something artificial, we didn't want to make something artificial to establish some artificially project and not and and ethnical but we wanted to to to install something together with the people with inhibitors in one district of Berlin and this was very good, this was what's functional and then people who are not Roma identified themselves with this Roma et al club theater and this is what is functional because we like somebody asked me in one conference in Brussels a long time ago what is this Roma theater and then I started to think about it and then actually I realized okay the question is what is German theater, what is national theater and you know there is a definition but I think this is important to this connection to Roma theater is actually to to work on actuality or on classical literature but from the perspective of people who have this experience to be a Roma or and everything what is what does mean like social and culture so thank you, thank you so much, nice to see you how diverse the Roma theater is also it doesn't have enough visibility yet I'm going to ask you another round question now this year the festival revolves around the theme of survival and prosperity how do your productions relate to these two things for the scape of simplicity please keep the previous order Mihaila, yeah sorry but I think I didn't got the question so this year's theme is like prosperity and how does our performance is relate to this theme, yes yes yeah okay interesting question so prosperity and survival yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah actually yes I think Roma scene the age of the witch is talking about how we as Roma community can prevail in the future and it takes over this idea of Roma Roma people being in control with their own lives and having a future so yeah I think it's about survival the future has to be about survival about joy about pride about Roma resistance so this is how the characters of the play the techno witches vision and imagine this utopian society where finally Roma people can find a safe place without discrimination without racism where they can prosper where they can resist and they they are in power and they also have access to to to their own lives and control the community and yeah and at the same time imagining strategies and tools for for the new generations great thank you thank you so Rodrigo let's talk about the short about the show and how how it answered these two themes so the village day is played in a disadvantaged village our audience has function they are like a poverty porn tourists all of them want to see what is going on like a big drama in a poor village that's why they are coming after why they will learn that the biggest influence in the community is a Roma woman who lives alone with her son called Mara she is the only one who can give credit to the people she gives like airwood clothes food cigarette cigarette and the most important money of course she does it with interest as these people are not potential clients for the banks so none of the business banks would give them credits because they are not they don't have enough incomes to pay back the informal money lending is banned by the law so beside that our main character Mara is a good patron so she also pays attention what happens in the community but we also ask the questions why all communities produce their own ushery people and their own authoritarian leaders and can maybe a lady who gives ushery to people still understandable or maybe also adorable and at which point and why she finally becomes still a monster so this is a universal topic as I also mentioned before we don't need to go very far because if we watch at Eastern European societies or Hungary there is a paradox in in these countries yeah that opera groups although they don't want to support authoritarian regimes and leaders but in the same time they always support that which happens in also in the mainstream societies of these countries yeah Rodrigo said that you are doing like that okay thank you thank you thank you thank you so much um Alex do you want me to go Thomas Alex here or Richard yes I can hear you but no you cannot see me can you hear me now yeah do you want me to speak now okay at first please Richard at first it was my fault uh then I say Alex no problem um we talk about survival and prosperity and in the majority of Roma communities that would usually come down to the family the family is the hub that's what provides the survival and the prosperity and our play and I say our play because it's five people and from all over Europe and it's called the European family and what we're trying to do I think is to have a look at the similarities between this particular Roma family but also the differences and there's something that happens in this particular family a really life changing event for all of them and it's how they react and this play is about change it's about the changing face of Roma families it's also about change at personal change and sometimes I think within families within life you need to have a tragedy to really move you and and and so that you will change and there's revelation in this play so things are revealed about people about themselves about other people just within the family it's a filmed play and the people that are interacting about a tragedy but there's there are revelations as I said about the people but there's also a hope towards the end of the play there is redemption as well because I hope that we see this and very often I think we see when we talk about Roma families we think we know about them because of the mainstream TV or mainstream films we don't realize that there is a diversity within those families and I think that's what we're trying to get across as well to show people that to show people within the community and also outside the community and it's been mentioned already this evening and I think it's really interesting these are universal themes everybody will suffer loss everybody will suffer these things in life and families come unglued but they come apart and sometimes they never put back together and sometimes they are so following this play I think I think people will see a lot of themselves whether they're a Roma person or a non-Roma person they will see a lot of those things I hope it challenges people both inside the community and outside the community because I found right in the play and working with the other writers that actually a lot of my perceptions were challenged a lot of things that I thought about my Roma family and beyond were challenged that for me is the I suppose the crooks of the play really the similarities the differences the challenge and I think it as it says it's a European family the family is spread all over Europe and this is what's happened to a lot of Roma families we have become split we used to be together so we had that togetherness we had that survival and prosperity really really close but now people are working in different countries if they live in the same country they're in different areas they have to go further for their work and they don't go together the internet technology is great but it also can can build barriers between people too because people tend to just stay in the wrong little world so I hope this play and I really believe this play I should say will show the differences the similarities and will challenge a few stereotypes and move us on you know this this is not just about Roma this is about a family who happened to be Roma and yeah that's that's I'm very passionate about it. Thank you thank you so much. Simonida Selimovic good to see you we can't wait to see you so please Alex can we hear Simonida before you? Simonida I would like to ask you to introduce yourself and your work in shortly and please tell us some sentences about how your performances in this year's festival how it answered these two topics these two themes the survival and and the prosperity. Is this for me? For Simonida. Okay. Please step your microphone on. Do you hear me? Yes. Yeah the theater is about three women that are in the prison in Austria in Vienna because they are refugees and they don't have passports don't know documents no papers and they want to get asylum in in Vienna the three women there from one is from Syria or she say that she's from Syria one other is from Iran and the other one she's from Macedonia and they're there because they have to like they treated like really like they did something they are really in the prison and then in this in this peace you could you could see how the women are treated as refugees in in this in the prison and how also they like EU the European countries act with the refugees and the minorities and how these women like start to find solutions to get out of this story to get asile and to go out of this prison and one of these women she's also Roma and it's not I mean it's also about Roma this topic but not like just about this it's a play about humanity about prosperity about like how to get power how to come out out of some problems and out of all these document stuffs and we are talking about politics in this play about women especially about women because the most of the refugees there were only men and we ask we had the question like why just why we see just refugees as men's where are the women and we found then out that they just pay for men to left their countries where the war is because they could like they couldn't be raped or they could also send money to their family and they all like collect money to send one of their from the family member to the European country to get their like work and to send money and to bring the other families also and in when women are refugees they have other problems like because they have another sexuality they're homosexual or because of they they lost their husband and then like you you will the family or like the people they will see you with other you will not reach disrespect how you they received it and yeah and also like yeah it's it's a bit how to say about really like surviving and women women stories okay thank you thank you so much uh alex now it's your chance to there's something about your your show i hope i hope you can hear and also see i had the crash with the computer i apologize once again pambina queen of flowers is how to say it maybe the perfect example of how these two things get a lot got along with the the roman community the larger community in romania we're talking about two million people approximately and with a special look on and people look in within the florist florist community in so for the roma there was no good time so to say maybe it was a little bit better regarding prosperity right and when we say prosperity first thing is the life conditions and money well they kind of made it almost with this tradition of their of selling flowers and this made their their living easier they could earn a living after living after finishing with the slavery you know they haven't got from the state anything like compensation or something they were just left off in the street and barely naked this is the true history not what they sell us on propaganda you know so we try to follow the roma florist community during a longer period of time like from the liberation when the liberation started until the interbelled period and further on through communism and through our days so we'll find out where the roma community of the florist is today and the the clue maybe i don't want to spoil the play because i'd really like yeah i don't want to spoil the plot but i can tell you this the one and only highlight of this entire period was one bambina the real one lina georgiascu has got to be the first importer of flowers yeah from from the outside the exterior into rumania and this was in during the chausescus time so maybe it is interesting to see and really to see where they are now because again not spoiling anything but i just wanted to mention that the florist community own marketplace this is real life we're talking about has been totally shut down and demolished by the mayor and the municipality yes right now in march during the pandemic and the period when people were forced to stay in house this is when the government in rumania considered it absolutely necessary to clear out a market a flower market that has that has been in in in the the middle of bucaris the capital of rumania for more than 100 years and they demolished it yeah thank you thank you i i i'm so apologized because we have not so much time and we we we want to hear the roma act too and you you have to know after your shows will be an audience discussion during the festival so if you have more information about the the about the background of your stories you can share it with the audience so let's boy shah and tell us something about your shows so um prosperity yeah and and this is a very very interesting question because uh we we have uh in last century a lot of political have you seen the also a lot of um uh political correctness correctness we have still it and and also this um issues about roma is of course everything else but not really prosperity and and survival this is for me like you can be everything and you can talk about what you want but don't talk about uh poor uh no no no don't talk about the people who are poor poor is criminal this is and this is uh unfortunately like this and this is uh actual also uh if you talk about refugees uh who uh yeah the the the worst where refugees are those refugees which came to europe uh because of financial situation this is they are the worst you know and and roma also reminds me of very bad people because want to survive and want to earn so i want this is so and uh of course our play um what what is uh what is this there uh in on this topic um a long time ago when i was just start and reka start to talk about this play and then say ah okay this is the play with the basement of on on um on story from france kafka uh bow in the borough and and this goes about one animal uh this animal animal like you yes no no no but it's in the original original is uh this maul wolf maul wolf maul yeah maul and this is again and then okay of course the the place uh very adapted and um uh the issue of this place of course this this um this phenomenon uh that uh people uh like um doing to protect their own um existence make they isolate them and they make another stuff they are pressed and this is the phenomenon not from now this is phenomenon thousand years uh and the people are very interesting animals they they learn very slowly and they forgot very fast what i wanted to say what was uh so and this is and then we discussed okay this is the way it's going it it it's happened something with the one animal then so no no no i'm not animal this is one uh one human like with one animal animalic animalic human no no wait a moment but every human is animalic so it's now only about human and this is uh actually and what is important um there are two perspectives uh it goes about uh person uh actually under the earth and but this under the earth is only one frame it's actually what's happened over uh on on the above and then it's of course uh we analyzed and we make a display to to make a transparency about this um um uh cynic cynicism cynicism cynicism and uh and and capability of each person to be oppressor each person can be oppressor in one time and um and this is this is one issue the second issue is of course what is also important not only not only for Roma intellectuals who are searching all the time also one category to excuse themselves because they are Roma and because we are in this situation in which we are it's also interesting for our other uh to see them from our perspective because uh idea is to um do not to explain our situation to explain the majority situation the system situation system um system mechanism and this mechanism put all us in some role in some in um in this um unfortunately for Roma also uh outside and so I don't know if it's clear enough but if somebody have a question can uh can uh write me email Simulita thank you thank you so much Slavisa uh it was it was so interesting looking forward to see all your shows thank you for uh sorry before closing just Rodrigo would like to mention the two other performances whose representatives are not here now only two sentences so there will be also one performance from the Ukrainian romance theater it's about Roman Caravan in the second world war and how they survived in the old days Igor Kripunov and it was is directed by Igor Kripunov and there is a play from Pennsylvania it's uh uh the story live story of George Peketelovas from the perspective of the Romanian house so don't forget about the need thank you thank you thank you so much um thank you all of you thank you for the artist for accepting the invitation I hope we managed to arouse the interest of the audience for the upcoming performances and Roma theater in general we are waiting for you at Forz International Roma Theater Festival online we will show one performance every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Central European time so let's let's see the shows across the online area thank you for all thank you for having us bye bye bye thank you all