 Hello, welcome everyone. My name is Rosa Maria Costich-Disneros and I'm collaborating with the Independent Theatre Hungary. I am really happy to sit down today with Josh Lavaiz, Simonida Selimovic and Sandra Selimovic. We are here today to talk about forever holiday for Ima Urlaub or Suka de la Mensa. And as you can see I've said that in three different languages. So before we get into the work maybe each of you could let me know who you are, where you are and tell me a little bit about yourself. Maybe Sandra, shall we start with you? Yeah, I'm Sandra, I'm an actress. I started to act I think when I was 10, the first time in serial TV in Austria and then with 15 I met one director and he was like my mentor so he was my teacher and since then I think since I remember since I was 12 I was always acting and then I finished 2004 my school like for acting and then I started also to direct and also to do workshops with people especially with teenagers or with marginalized people who maybe have special needs maybe I was working one year in the prison for example the name is Gangsta Girls you can see it in the cinema and yeah so we're doing everything and with my sister we founded 2010 Romano Svato it's a Roma feminist theater organization in Austria in Vienna and we are very proud that we are still doing it and we are still very successful with it yeah fantastic so your sister I'm assuming you mean Simonida yes just so for our viewers you two are sisters correct yes yes okay so it's I think only natural that we move to Simonida Simonida can you tell me a little bit about you and your background please yes I'm Simonida Selimovic Rossecker now since two months I I get married I congratulations it's my Rossecker I started to act when I was like 12 together with my sister Sandra in a series in a TV series in Austria Disposed for Children and then I was I started to model here in Austria in the international and in like 2002 I started with my acting education here in Austria and yes to 2010 we found the Romano Svato together Sandra and me and we did a lot of plays together and also we were playing in other I played a lot also in films in movies movies and and so on thank you so again a real mix between you and Sandra a nice combination there and so last but definitely not least Joshua you can tell me a little bit about you your backgrounds your work please that be wonderful yes thank you so much for the at first of all thank you for the invitation and I also want to appreciate my sisters my companions who are also in this space Santa and Simonida we know each other since 2016 so and I'm really proud that we're creating pieces together also in Berlin yeah and I'm an actress Joshua I'm an also an educator in theater I did my exam 2009 and also a master in theater in 2013 in Berlin so and then I am also I'm continuously improving my knowledge and skills and acting yeah I was also playing in different documentary films and the last documentary we had created in the Amalika GDR about the Cynthia and Roma people in the GDR and was really really touching and moving and yeah this is now playing for one year in the television and also our play City of Liberated People is involved in this documentary so I'm a little bit proud of this of this values you know and my main artistic focus is on I did oh you have notes that's I didn't read you know and I'm a little bit excited always sure I feel like yes yes and my artistic focus is mainly on movement and dance I'm dancing since since 2010 okay so and now with yeah I never finish that sure sure and that's that's mainly my my focus and artistic and yeah I have film and theater experiences as well so a lovely powerhouse here of women and maybe Sandra you can tell us a little bit about your role in the work for a holiday I think you were the director correct so if you could yes yes exactly so it was actually I mean I was directing it but it was a collective work because we I think we took six months for something like that or even more like really time also to to do like acting like acting classes for the for the there are children like for teenagers because we wanted them really to be good and to and not just to have this kind of level like school theater you know you we wanted really to have a good like at least semi professional level so we really worked hard on on acting classes and then we we did together like with Hannah with the with the drama tour we had always like meetings and we we did improvisations yeah that's your improvisations like with with the teenagers and then we took the best out in one impro improvisation and wrote it down and this is how we we actually wrote the play like with the improvisation with the teenagers together and then yeah we were working on the scenes but it was really like the process of minimum six months and not like a typical four or six weeks rehearsing and then you know playing it was really like a process which I also like because it was really an opportunity to you really know the the teenagers and their life and their problems and their day by day struggles and also like that they could contribute to the play it was not just us that we we were like overwhelming overwhelming them with something like yes we want this and this to you to say in the play so they contributed a lot yeah so it was very kind of organic from them they could yeah yeah and and and it was also based on a true story this this I also have to say already Oslo can say that with these two teenagers what happened to them so it was a very like it was very personal for everybody because everybody contributed with something personal what they experienced in their life and also based on this true story which happened so yeah I really liked it and the teenagers they really were so authentic that people in the end really didn't believe that they were not actors they were like really still you know like there's they still go to school it's like no they're not they're not actors they're really surprised yeah yeah and Joshua can you tell me a little bit about your role in the in the work um were you um yeah can you can you speak a bit about your your play your as an actress in the work yeah yeah at first of all I was not an actress I was a staff in Amarudron so and we had the youngster who get deported overnight two brothers this is the story what Santa was talking about a little bit and this is the background of Oslo they became overnight refugees yeah you know we we were talking about the fact that more than 200 people get deported at this night and the two brothers and mostly of them were Roma and this was our drive to to talk about that story and I can add I can add that me and the drama talk we were we were going to I know we we went now we fly it to to the Kosovo directly to the village where the brothers are and did interviews with them and that was really not a surprising fact but there was a whole village we're talking in German so yeah and yeah we were talking with the brothers with the family and filming that and also get the feeling of how they're living there what are their questions problems situation they're living in yeah and to bring that to Germany to show no no no that was not a good decision deportation is not a solution for humanity and yeah that was the first part and then I was writing the idea down we get the found of it and then we did the improvisation process of really six months that was really interesting and yeah I was an actress okay yeah okay okay so you really also had a very long relationship with the work and it sounds like you know as Sandra said there was six months of not more that allowed all of you to be really sit with the work sit with the stories work with the young people Simonita do you do you want to tell us a little bit about your role in the work and your contribution yes actually I was the last one who came in in this project yes because one other it was an actor a man who was playing first my role and then he couldn't and we talked about the solution Sandra and me and I gave her the solution but maybe it's good to that our two sisters are playing this if you find another actress and they asked me Yoshla and Sandra do you want to join us I was like okay why not and then I'm but I was I mean I had a little baby and I fight with the the baby with Samuel to Berlin with him and I played this role and actually it was very emotional on one on one side because I mean we had this also in our families that were people deported and also then to play this role to be the I mean to that your children are deported and you could stay in Germany because in my story was I have to stay there because of sickness Germany I mean they allowed the mother sometimes they allowed parents to stay and if the children are over 15 they deport them okay yeah and to know about this I didn't know about this this was very new for me I felt very sorry and also I then I remembered about situations in our families and I talked also to my aunt she was deported from Germany to Serbia and I mean yeah in this situation how to play you know I mean on one hand to know some people but thanks god it doesn't happen to me sure this was also the thing and then also in my my son the middle one he played also in he was one of the players yeah and yeah so it sounds like there's a lot of with layers to the work and each of you had a very a different attachment to it in contribution and also a looking at your own personal relationships and you know and how that if it enters if it doesn't and I think one of the powers about the work that I found was you know you don't as you just said at an age someone gets deported and on paper or in the media it might look like a very like a fact or we just send these people there or we deport them after 15 years old but what I think the work does is it makes it human and it says well actually these are children being deported or these are people and these are stories that you can't just once you send them away forget about them they live on and there's a a cultural legacy there and I think that that's one of the powers of the work and now Simone that to know that you were initially it was a role for a man and you walked into this and so you had to reshape it can you tell me a little bit about that process I don't know Sandra as maybe director or someone who was supporting the collective process what that was yeah it was a little bit we were thinking maybe to do something like a lesbian couple like Jocelyn Simonida but I mean me I am personally I am a lesbian but it was I didn't like I didn't like it in this case in this story to to edit also as a lay as another layer in this in this play because the story itself with the deportation with the teenagers and and so on was already so strong that I didn't want to put another topic like something with LGBT it was for me like too much like it was not necessary in this in this situation because there were other other things which were for me in this moment more more important than also to add something with LGBT rights or whatever it might be just trying too hard and it doesn't breathe because you fix them too much too much like all these all these topics of discrimination and intersectionality but in this case it was a little bit too much also for the teenagers itself like then to think okay from who is the mother then they adopted them they're not the real mothers you know then you really had to rethink and also change a lot of the play if if there were like really like a lesbian couple and they just not just like maybe one was the mother and the other not or they they adopted them yeah it was it would be too complicated and we really wanted to put this deportation topic in the focus so that's why I decided no you both please be sisters and not like a couple you know even though that I would like to see it everywhere but also like if you think particularly of what you want to talk about then you really have to decide what is really the the the subject like the main subject sure and if is if is there a memorable moments for for any of you and thinking about either the process of creating the work or in performing the work is there something that comes to mind that you remember that feels like a memorable moment you'd like to share maybe just like would you like to share okay um the funny absurd moments you know the special on that play at the end for me that we have a really hard topic and it was really funny so it's deep it's funny and it's it is um it's a hard topic you know it's really and that was for me really memorable the funny absurd moment in the immigration office for example the scene where we have with this food and all this stuff and it was so funny with the with the clock and oh yeah I like it I was really enjoy yeah as an actress to play that and with my with with my colleagues was the play is just interesting because it is funny and serious at the same time and I mean in the immigration office suddenly I'm pegging a bag of food and offering sausages and chicken and dancing yeah when when when does something like that happen in immigration office never never yeah I really liked it yes yes yeah but it was a humor and every one of us understood it because we know this Balkan lifestyle and also this Roma lifestyle how the people are thinking you know even when you suffer you uh your humor is always there and you have to use it I mean and to because this is life also I mean to to stay alive you know and then suddenly dancing somewhere you know in this migration office this was everyone agrees everybody even the director does dancing on this office you know because oh okay we're waiting for passport what to do just dance and share food and yeah this to also to share these stupid things yeah yeah yeah yeah and I think that you know it's one of the kind of lightness that that's as we you know been talking about that this kind of human side like you know this is happening but let's just also be in the moment you know yes yes just like did you want to say something I just want to add every Roma people who weren't on the audience they understood and I think this is really really special we're creating a Roman code yes you know that's really beautiful I really appreciate that yeah yeah and I think that's important also for I really go ahead Sandra go ahead no I want to say I really like the scene where they arrived in in Kosovo like they were deported and then they arrived on the airport and they were waiting for the family and then we were like doing something like you have a very small car where maybe you think two people fit but then ten people come out and say hello you know like very loud kissing everybody taking these two kids who were deported putting them somehow you know in the car and then they had this this drive which was very very funny and with music and they also had party and and eating meat and smoking and very loud music it was so funny and I really loved this moment when they had to go out of the car and you saw you saw a very small car and then ten people going coming out like where did you put them yeah okay this was really my favorite yeah the really it was very funny also the different is because we had also once one dramaturg told us you know this is good that you could show these kind of stories because if a gajah or the gajah will show these kind of stories this would be very cliche and stereotypical and racist you know but if we show it from our perspective and with our humor and with I mean with people with real people so with real stories it's another completely other story then you could take it and you can you could understand yes and I think that's a really important point that you raise that when it comes from the community from us and it's shared it has the nuances and the kind of lived experience and so we know how to kind of share it and what is or isn't offensive and maybe some could argue it's cliche but it's not because it's also there's a reality to that to that and we know how to share that when to share it and it's ours and it's ours to share and we decide when or not to share that and I think that's a really important point that if when it's done maybe by someone who's not from the community it has then the potential to be a bit tone deaf and not you know you don't get to wear aroma identity you know we're just from the community and then that becomes a sharing of that we've chosen to share and let you into on the code as you said Joshua so no absolutely I think that's a really good point and is there anything else that you wanted the audience to know about the production I know you've said Sandra that you wanted definitely deportation to be the you know and we've discussed and heard human stories and you know this kind of resilience that the community has but is there anything else was there ever like a message that you guys felt okay this is something I want to definitely communicate to the audience or to viewers silence no you said it okay I think I think you've got the points across absolutely well is there anything else you'd like to share about the work maybe that I haven't asked you but that feels important to discuss yes maybe freedom and responsibility is my message you know nothing I mean this is from area I don't want to copy some boards or not for me but I would say it at the same level at the same time um nothing without us about us that's about that's not my um my torch and I absolutely agree with that and you know and I would love to that Germany for example I'm living in Germany take more responsibility to take we get another found so to create more on it because we are deliver really deep and really big issues we deliver that we deliver we deliver ways and we do it for our community so I mean who's going to the German theater no Roma and Cindy I mean especially a few are really interested in but it's not that the topics who are on the stage are for us the only thing the only place Roma Roma um on Gorky theater my sisters are playing the main role yes so that's the only play in Germany I know already who involve also Roma people that they can understand so yeah that's my message at the end more pieces for us and with us yeah absolutely absolutely and I think that is you know a lovely place to to end this conversation with that powerful message you know and reflecting on the work you know it was important for me to try to say you know forever holiday for him a love so Karen I'm inside in the three languages because I think that the work is is going into various crossing many boundaries and even though you're looking at deportation you know you're not trying to create more boundaries you're trying to open them and say you know let's look at people let's honor those stories um and you've done it in such a beautiful way and a very respectful way and funny way as well so thank you so much thank you you watch it yes you watch it yes I have yes before I sit down with you I watch all of the works and yes yes so yes all right thank you so much thank you for for sharing your memories and your experiences of creating the work and I'm sure our viewers really enjoyed hearing about the three of you and and and the work so thank you so much thank you thank you thank you thank you