 It's academic, and it's theater. It's the place where they both meet. We have the audience and the process of it for each other. Do actual practices and start on checklists. Okay. Okay. Everybody please. Samples of women. Sharing. What is that you do? Sharing how you do that. There's no way you can ignore that anymore. Or tomorrow when you come and see me talk about it. Make sure the video two times before you get right. Two times. This starts at a little thing right today. We have to be completely open. Theater for everybody. Yes, everybody. Let's get what's in there. And indeed, my understanding of white relationships there has already changed. Survival of theater has a large form of events around the world. Welcome everybody to the Martin E. Segal Theater Center here at the Graduate Center. CUNY and it's our great pleasure and honor to welcome you to our first day of the Pinball Voices. Festival is the significant festival for the Americas, maybe the largest ones. I think about 60 or 70 writers from all around the world are being hosted by Penn. It's a great organization. If there's any organization to support next to Greenpeace, now there's really Penn. They support Freedom for Right to write programs. Got a lot of people out of prison and also really championed. Niter's translations and give out one of the most significant awards for novelists and poets and other writers. So it's a great privilege for us to be part of it. The festival was founded by Salman Rushdie and Paul Osterer under the first Bush government when they felt America had a tunnel vision, was not listening to voices from outside the world and they thought that was bad enough then. And the statistic says that 95% of all books published in America are American or British books. The remaining 5% half of it is French or German because the government support it. So you have about two books out of 100 from around the world. It would be unthinkable for musicians who believe in world music. They listen to music from everywhere, still practice locally, but they know how significant it is to be open to voices and sounds from around the planet and to understand better who we are, where we come from and where we are going to. I am Frank Henscher and the director of the Siegel Center. We bridge academia and professional theater, international and American theater. We publish here, we have international visiting scholars and do many other things and hopefully we'll join us for our other programs. But this is right at the heart of what we do. So it's a very, very big moment for us in this season and thank you for taking time out. As I said earlier, we need really good theater, but we also need a good audience and interested audience and formed audience. So this is fantastic for you taking time on a most probably sunny day now finally outside, which is very, very, very rare. The play reading, we're going to hear now the performance will be about 60 minutes and it is our great pleasure to have Mikaela Dragan with us. She actually will perform herself. She's a Romanian Roma actress who lives in Berlin, works at the Great Gorky Theater. She wrote monologues about women from her family or from her friends of what she observes and it's the first time she does it in English. She also learned it to do it here. We have a great musician, a great director who put it together, a film director. So thank you very much. And now it's the time. I'll do this and get out your cell phone and let's make sure it's off. And now here it should be sound off mute or whatever it says. It never rings in our performances. Only one time when I showed it, I accidentally switched it on and then of course it rang in my discussion. So thank you very, very much for coming and here we go. Thank you. Good evening. Hello. Hello. My name is Mikaela Dragan and my name is Rumi. Which translates to I'm Mikaela Dragan and I'm Roma. Gypsy, that is. Well, actually half. I'm half gypsy, the good half. Yeah, yeah, that's what I say to annoy the alt-right supporters. That maybe they are in the audience tonight. Oh my God, I hope not. Anyway, the other half. Nothing special. Do you want to hear it? Yeah. I'm Romanian and no, Roma and Romanian are not the same things. It's just a coincidence of names. Or actually could be God's way to be soft the Romanians. Yeah. Anyway, I'm not here to upset you with any political crap or talking about taking away your guns. No, no, no. I think we will simply get along better if I share with you a personal love story. And trust me, you want to hear this. Ready? So last year, I was at this Romani music festival near my village and there were all of these musicians from all over Europe who played all sorts of gypsy music, like gypsy electro, gypsy punk, gypsy, ska, gypsy hip hop. And when they heard that I'm a gypsy, oh boy, the look in their eyes, they were fascinated. Are you a real gypsy? Wow. So cool. A real one. Yeah. They were all, how do you American say? Freak out? Yes. This is the word. Yeah. So I'm sure you can guess what happened. At least three of those musicians fell in love with me. I'm serious. Don't be so surprised. One of them even asked me to marry him. Really? He said, all my life I've been waiting for a woman like you, Michalana. He couldn't pronounce my name right. OK, perhaps that should have been the first warning. Anyway, he said, I am a gazo. That's what we call an unroma person. But don't worry, this will come up later. And he was like, I know everything there is to know about Roma people. You see, Michalana, I've been playing gypsy music for over 10 years. And I love gypsy music. Wow. I have to admit this impressed me. 10 years playing gypsy music. Wow. So I decided to sing a song for him. It's CD signed. The best two days of my life. Big kiss for my future wife. The romantic in me gave him a hair strand along with my grandpa's gypsy song notebooks. He's a musician after all. And I also gave him one of the earrings I was wearing. And I said, I will keep one earring and you keep one till we see each other again. I will only feel whole again when both pieces are reunited. It took three and a half months of talking on Facebook for him to finally ask me, wouldn't you like to come to Netherlands to stay here a few days with me? Well, that's all I needed to hear. So I borrowed some money and I got a plane ticket right away. I kept thinking, I have at last found my prince who will marry me and finally take me away from this country. I was so excited that one week before I left I couldn't sleep or eat because he was all I could think about. And then the day of my departure. I came down with major stomach cramps. Could you believe? I guess because of all the excitement. So here I am, the princess who was waiting for the moment we would finally make love. And it was finally going to happen I won't be able to get off the freaking toilet. Oh my God, why is so karma so bad? But I was not going to lose this opportunity. So I desperately popped some pills just so I could feel a little better. Because you know, I really had to be the woman he'd been waiting for all of his life. Not some dirty gypsy. Lucky for me, or should I say for him, the pills held back the, you know what? Thankfully the pills worked so well that I decided to wear a sexy garter belt and a mini skirt. But I was so wrapped up in the excitement and I was so happy that the cramps went away. I forgot it was the middle of January in the Netherlands. So I arrived. Oh my God, the wind was blowing up my little dress and here I am with my tiniest talking trying my best to be sexy. So what? I thought, I am on a mission. I have to conquer him as soon as he sees me. You know what they say? First impression matters, right? And then I see him. Oh my God, my knees were trembling and not because of the cold. You look great, he said. Yes, yes, I glowed. And then we kiss. It was perfect. And after we go to his place. Kind of messy. Kamma, Nihaila, that's how bachelor's live. I said to myself, we turn around the house and on the floor I see some kind of plants left to dry on some newspaper sheets. You know, just like the ones my grandma used to pick to make tea. And after she picked the camel milk she left it to dry. You know what this is? He asked me. Tea? Marihuana. Whoa, you can make Marihuana tea? I brought some souvenirs from you. After the show. They are here from Netherlands. Anyway, then I realized what was going on here. How can I be so stupid? The man of my dreams was a Marihuana tea dealer. Very innovative. But still, this is very bad. No, no, this is really bad. Very bad. But wait, I know. This must be why I came into his life. Don't you see? To save him. It all makes sense now. For 20 years, he'd been smoking Marihuana tea. And God brought me into his life so that I would help him smoking or drinking, whatever. Yeah, that's it. I was so sure of it. I was feeling so sure of my mission. You know, I felt like some kind of heroine for him. Some sort of Nazi Reagan. Do you remember? Just say no. Yeah. Okay, okay, I said to myself, I'm up for my purpose. I mean, how hard can it be to stop a musician from recreational drugs? So, two days go by and I was so stoned as well that I couldn't remember my mission so well. Moreover, it seemed like all of his friends were stoned all the time as well. So God couldn't expect me to stop all of them, right? And trust me, he had a lot of friends. And they all knew me as the Romanian gypsy girl that Gregor met at his concert in Romania. They were all so curious to hear things about my enchanting gypsy world. I felt like I was a museum piece. You see, in Romania, no one would give me the time of day for being gypsy and these people would pay just to talk to me for 10 minutes. I have to admit that I like the situation. For the first time, I was the exotic one. It was like my human value was higher just because I was born a gypsy. I mean, yeah, it was still discrimination, but positive this time. Is that a thing? Well, what can I say? After a few days of being the interesting gypsy, I was getting a little tired of having the same conversation with everyone. So I added a little drama, just a little, to my life story. So I told them how my Romanian father had stolen my gypsy mother from the ghetto. And there was a big word between gypsies and Romanians. And my mom. My mom shows some sort of gypsy Juliet because she wanted to kill herself out of love for my dad. But she was forbidden to marry him because he was a gajo. But that didn't kill her, he was a gajo. As a matter of fact, for most of his life he was not aware he was a gajo. Just like many of you here this evening. Have you ever thought that we call you gaje? Hello, gaje. So, as I said, I invented a Romeo and Gypsy Juliet story for my parents. Although, well, my parents didn't love each other so much. And they have been divorced for about 15 years. Also, my Roma family hasn't been living in a ghetto. But, you know, I wanted to keep the Romanticism alive. In my defense, these people were artists and they were not interested in details, like troughs or pots, you understand? I mean, it's like Fox News here in the U.S. It's not lying, it's entertainment, no? So, thinking back, we did have a lot of fun. Gregorus taking me from bar to bar, smoking and drinking every night. I guess I didn't say no. I'm sorry, Nancy. So, I remember the first time I saw him naked. I stared at him for about two minutes. No, it wasn't that. What did I think about you? His body was all covered in tattoos. I mean, they were everywhere, even in places they should not be. He had a big tattoo on his belly saying, Good Boy. His stage name, Gregor Teror. Were not there enough clues for me? As for our moments of love, when I finally did it, and I'm ashamed to say it, but I would say it like this. Turns out, I waited for three and a half months for three and a half minutes. Soon after those three minutes, I asked him about my earring. He said he no longer had it. Could you believe? I was so disappointed in myself, not only had I felt to be the heroine of his life, the good girl that would save a rude boy from perdition, but I ended up just being like him. I remember once, when we sat down to eat, he would read the newspaper. I shouted at him, asking for the night about ten times. Gregor, Gregor, louder and louder. He would hear me, but he wouldn't listen. I was just invisible for him. He finally answered, What? You know, it's not okay to read the newspaper while you eat, because we need to show respect for the meat. And I was asking for the knife. That's all. You asked for the knife. In English, it's knife. If you say knife, everybody's going to laugh at you. And anyways, who are you? Virgin Mary in my house to tell me what's right and wrong? I always read the newspaper when I eat, and that's how I like it. Okay? I swear. I burst into tears. And with my shitty English and all, I said, Listen to your motherfucker. Has anyone loved you enough in this life to show you how it feels like to care for anyone else but yourself? Needless to say, I returned back to Romania after all this adventure. Depressed. This guy wasn't anything I imagined him to be. So I thought, would I be bothered with this idiot if I was a traditional gypsy? I would have married a virgin at 15, and actually maybe would have been better off. This is actually what I wanted to talk about in display, about Roma women who married traditionally. And you know what? After all this hassle with Mr. Terror, I'm not so sure he's so bad to marry age 15. If the groom is a good guy, you know? I was thinking for a long time about producing a play about Roma women. So, FYI, even if I would portray stories of Roma women who had struggles going to school, I want you to know that there are plenty of Roma women with an education. And the idea of an educated Roma is a big stereotype about us. So let's start. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you my first Roma woman, Maria. Someone... No, no, not yet. I'm still here. Someone told me about a gypsy Maria who married a virgin. And I called her one day and I told her what it was about. And she agreed meeting me in the park. Hello, Maria. Wait a second. How do I recognize you? Oh, don't worry. You'll have no problem recognizing me. I'm black and fat. Fat but beautiful. Sit her hand but voice in the background. All right, all right. And me, you know, I'm black and short. So see you at the entrance. I waited for her in the park with my ex-boyfriend Resvan who was helping me film her story. Out of habit, we were holding hands. When he left for a moment, she said, why are you involved with a Romanian? You couldn't find a Roma like you? At least he wouldn't call you gypsy when you fight. Yeah. Well, yeah, Maria. I mean, how could he call me a gypsy if he was a gypsy too, right? But actually, Resvan used to call me gypsy. How is my gypsy? Come over gypsy. When we returned from the park after meeting Maria, I told him, dudes, I don't want to encourage the use of the word gypsy. You know, well, it's used pejoratively and shows lack of respect. In our Romani language, the word doesn't even exist. So since now, please use Roma instead of gypsy. Okay, gypsy, he loved. And how would you like me to call you? My Roma, the capital of Italy? No, just my Roma. Finally, about Maria. She loved all the time while telling the story of her life. Her marriage with Sergio, a Roma like her, Maria. When he first met my parents, he came bearing gifts, which I thought it was very special. My father didn't think so. He was like, oh, what is the big deal he brings gifts after all its Christmas day? Yes, he came to my house on Christmas. But actually, we met three months earlier. On 9-11, to be exact. You know, the day the towers fell in New York. Back then, I was somewhat of a journalist and I was at a conference about Roma poverty that was being held at Four Seasons Hotel. I met Sergio there. He's an activist for Roma rights. And we were engaged like everybody for three months. And after that, we got married. Like everybody, right? So I presented him to my family as my boyfriend and I told them that we wanted to get married. We were so sure that we found each other. And that we were made for each other. That we decided to get married. My parents were very excited. Especially my mother. Poor her. Because she thought nobody would marry me because I skipped all the marrying ages in my community. There was no unmarried boy of my age, 27. Even if I would have searched. Oh my God. I remember. I had to marry a 16 year old boy. And for him, it seemed very normal to marry me if my parents would agree. Because they are used to making this step as soon as they choose a girl and they can provide for her. Poor him. At 16, totally immature. I told him I'm 10 years older than him. But for him, it didn't matter. He wanted me to be his wife. When I heard him, I started laughing really hard. The poor guy. He was really serious. Anyways. My marriage with Sergio. Yeah. I recall my father telling my mother to ask me if I respect my mother-in-law's house. Well, he didn't have the courage to ask me himself. If, you know, if I'm still a virgin. So does she respect the house of her future husband or not? So my mother come and asked me how about it. I said, yes, I'm a virgin. She was relieved. My poor mother. So that's it. We got married the next month. All of my folks came and his folks came and it was a very simple wedding. Nothing traditional. Except for the fact that everybody was aroma. We had a really great time. But as I said, there was nothing traditional. Excepting my virginity at 27 years old. Actually, no, this wasn't so common. So as I said, I was also history teacher for Roma classes. And my students from 7th grade, I had 30 of them in my class. I remember that I tried to tell and to convince them that it's important to continue going to school. And I thought I could be an example. Because, look, I went through school and in one break the girls came to me and told me, Miss, but our mother said you are old and you are still not married. You don't have a family. I was 25 and I was old. Can you imagine an old lady? And then I realized, yes, I wasn't really a role model for them because they were 13, 14, and that's what they wanted, to have a family. And I was 25 and I still didn't have one. And for them it was shocking. I was amazed that they were not interested in a career. And to my great amazement, they were extremely ready to be mothers and wives because they were raised and formed like this. They knew how to make bread, to paint walls, to raise a child. They are not unhappy because they didn't see how cool it can be to be a career woman. They didn't care about this. Still, there was a small amount of girls from traditional family that wanted in school. And there was this girl. Her name was Somia. You know, she made it all the way up to 90 degrees and when she was forced to marry, she didn't feel comfortable with the situation at all. I am the school she wrote on the wall before she hanged herself. Yeah, because she started to have other options than the ones that were available in her community. Because in a community, when everybody lives the same and you copy their lifestyle, you don't have any reasons to be unhappy. You live the way you see. Maria's last words were deeply engraved in my mind. You live the way you see. I also learned a lot from Maria about the many marriage rituals of traditional Roma people, especially the virginity ceremony. They say this is the most important of them all. But I find it frightful that on your wedding night, at midnight, you have to go with your husband to bed. While everybody knows where you are going and what's about to happen, in there, in no less than 10 old ladies at the window of the bedroom, watching over... You know what? The point is that these old women will give their word that it happened with honor. But I ask myself, how can you... Well, how can you make love with 10 old ladies at the window watching? I imagine them. Come on. Do it. Do it already, you can. I've been sitting here for an hour. This is the direction. Bravo, bravo. And after it's done, they go out to the party dancing with the girls' bloodstained nightgown on a plate on which they also throw money. Their word that everything happened with honor. After I found this out from Maria, I asked myself, is early marriage a Roma tradition that defines us or just a practice from the times of Roma slavery when the owners had sexual privileges for their virgin slaves? The parents wanted at the beginning to protect the girls and marry them as soon as possible before the owners could rape them. Even at the age of 12 or 13. Still, I wonder, why nowadays some stubborn traditional Roma want to maintain this practice? Since the word was made, since then, we thought, who knows and understands where love comes from. From the eyes, from the eyebrows, there will be no more great sins. From the lips, from the eyes, with a look and a desire. From my eyes and my heart with passion to have me. In my eyes and my heart, do I want to be your wife? Once upon a time, there was an incredible true story. The adulteress, as I call it. And it goes like this. There once was a Roma king who had a son who married the most beautiful Roma girl anyone had ever seen. However, she was from another Roma group. She even had attended school. She made it to the eighth grade before she married. And you see, the community she entered into looked at her suspiciously. They were afraid that the school had a bad influence on her. But despite people's suspicions, the beautiful girl was married being virgin. Chai bari, how we Roma say. And it was a very happy marriage. They even had two children. The beautiful girl had big and progressive dreams. She dreamed to build a gypsy fashion house one day. She would talk about it all time, even though most of the Roma consider that dreams are just for Gaje. But she kept her dream. And would you believe that she became famous? She once gave an interview for a famous fashion magazine. I forgot the name. Anyway, and then, on that day, her husband was turning 30. The whole community was celebrating him in front of the palace with fireworks and huge rocket-sized firecrackers. It was going to be a great party. Three of the firecrackers were successfully launched in the honor of the Roma king's son. It was an amazing sight. But the fourth had trouble to launch. So the son of the Roma leader had bent over it to see what's wrong. And at that exact moment, the firecracker blew. He had half of his head removed. The witnesses said, this tragedy was seen as a curse. The whole family was in enormous pain. And the beautiful girl, the wife, was with us so young with two small children to raise. In fact, the family was in such pain that they even wanted to bring their son's body in the house. And this is something that is not allowed in almost all Roma communities. Because the dead person is kept outside is considered to be a cursed passing, a bad luck bearer. Bebacht, we say in Romani language. So the community was opposed to this and his body was left outside in a tent. It was winter. It was heartbreaking how the mourners were crying. Soon after the funeral, people started to talk that the beautiful wife had betrayed his husband before his death and that she was having a relationship with another man. Well, a Roma widow with children who is living with her in laws is not allowed to remarry and start a new family. And it was said and decided that the affair had started way before his husband's death. So naturally, she was banished from the community and she was sent to her parents without her children. After a while, I found out some awful news from the widow's father. He told me that she died only a few years after she went back home to her parents. The rumor has it one day she got sick and went outside and right there, she had a heart attack. She died when she was only 30 years old and unbelievable, the same age as her husband. Her father was so hard that he kept saying only nice things about her. It may have been only a friendly relationship with the rumor man. He would shout, the traditional culture punish heart in order to keep their balance. To those who don't know how to cry, because I don't want any pity. But if someone cares for me, I don't know. My tears, they will be my gift. Because they are loved tears. Tell me what you want me to start. I can start by showing you things from my closet. But drink your coffee first. Drink it. Very good. It has been made from a secret recipe from my mother, Bobochka. Don't worry, it will not affect your heart. And anyways, I have to throw away the cups you have been drinking from. That's the tradition. Please understand. You are not our people, so you have a different ethnicity. You are tainted. I'm sorry to tell you. Because you don't live by our purity rules. Yes, sure. I'm ready. Sorry, but in what magazine how? Vogue. I've never heard about it. But doesn't matter. I return to my husband to buy it for me. Yeah, I'm ready. Yeah, ask me. Of course, there is a gypsy fashion. But it's not the one you hear about on TV. People are not interested to find our ways and traditions. To find out the truth. Where have you seen oversized crinoline skirts? If you see gypsy fashion. Where? Where is our braided hair? Where are the scarves? Or our under scarves? Of course, you don't dress without your under scarved lady. I also like to wear Spanish-like skirts. But after 30, 32, it doesn't work anymore. I'm forced to wear an apron and usual skirts without layers upon layers. After the age of 30 the colors have to be more faded. But still beautiful. The darkest color you can choose is dark blue. Black... No, not black. Not black because it's for mourning the dead. No. Of course there are of course there are young girls who choose simpler and shorter skirts. But we don't mix our fashion with those flowers selling gypsies. We also don't have things in common from other Roma communities. The fashion is different. Each one with her people, with her traditions. But after a certain age everybody has to wear an apron. And you know what? When you wash the skirts you place them in a different pot. The things we wear below the waist like the skirts, men's and the underwear are not mixed with the shirts or towels. Otherwise it's a disaster. Listen to me, they become cursed. Men's fashion. Men's fashion is passing faster without much fuss. But when it comes to women not everybody can start the process of change. But we can't adopt any fashion we want even if we like it. For example, I can't wear a dress because people will say that is cursed and they will ask me where do you wash it? Do you pull it over your head? You never pull the skirt over your head. It's a shame to pull over a piece of cloth which you wear below your waist. Big shame. We never use dresses just skirts and tops in order to separate the top that is pure from the bottom that is impure. Men are allowed to wear anything the same as Romanians. But we women we are forced to follow the traditions even when they are outside the community. If that's the tradition that's it, we have to keep it. For example, one evening about three years ago my husband and his cousin got this idea to go to seaside and we packed our bags stuffed the car with bed sheets got the kids, got the cousin and his wife everybody in the same car and we left. We arrived there around 4 a.m. We were dressed as gypsies of course. The men said to us God, I won't go into like that how will you how will we enter the hotel by your side when you are wearing those gypsy clothes and he was right. They were modern, the kids were dressed by the latest fashion and we had our hair braided and headscarves. I braided my hair I stuffed the scarves under the car pillows and I entered the hotel at the reception they could tell that they were gypsies even if I had my hair on my shoulders they told us that the only available room is on the 13th floor the last one. We all asked for one room that's how we are used all together we changed the hotel sheet with ours why? because we don't sleep where others have slept even if the sheets are washed we changed them and just after that we slept the next day when the cleaning lady came she saw the sheets folded and she didn't understand anything I explained to her lady, we are gypsies yeah, we tell the truth as it is what? no, no, no listen to me we want to separate ourselves from the gaje through our traditions well, let me give you an example I jumped from an idea to another I came here from a different community from a village where I've lived mostly with gaje and in our community the first house was made by my grandfather when he came back from the Transnistria camps you know the Roma genocide so I went to school I went to school only after that I married and now, when the time has come for my daughter to go to kindergarten people started to talk they were saying that I will spoil her if I send her to school with the gaje boys I stood up for myself so what? it's not like I didn't go to school where Romanian did and I still ended up marrying a Roma so I was followed by some women they send her kids to kindergarten too but after they started to say if we are so many why wouldn't they separate our kids from the gaje? but won't they spend all their lives in a gaje world anyway? and after that they settled down so to get back to what I was saying when we went to the sea the people from the village were gossiping that we will forget about our traditions and we'll undress in front of each other I'm only allowed to do that in front of my husband so it didn't happen like that men bathed in the sea but not for long because the water was cold but me I stayed on the sand being dressed the whole time the men were laughing at me and Veta but they didn't force us they knew what the tradition is but people around us were looking making signs we were looking strange dressed on the beach even if we wanted to look different than usual that wasn't possible our men were telling us look you are not supposed to talk in our language around here but it was difficult I can't talk in Romanian when I'm among my people it just doesn't come naturally you know? well even if we had money we were hiding that we are Roma because we were humiliated and it was hard to find a way out but the most problems we have is with the police but I'm not afraid if a policeman comes in to my father in Los Courtyards to ask questions I understand his intentions and I ask him do you have a warrant? if not I'm going to call all the media on your head he asked for my ID card and then I say I'm Calo Fira Pita the daughter-in-law of the gypsy leader and I'm his right hand and when he's not here I'm in charge of all the responsibilities do you have any study? he asked and I say yes I might have studied more than other people around here and if he sees that I'm standing my ground he simply goes away knowing that there is nothing that he can do to me he knows that and he knows that I know that the ability to block his Calo Fira to serve in the gypsy leader to explain to the people Dear Calo Fira you who live the life simple and pure we would like to dedicate a song to Calo Fira who was called the adulteress and to her husband as in my research for my play was the last girl I met Roxana a really rebellious Romani so naturally I called her the Joan of Arc of the Gypsies after I had already put together most of my material for my play I began to have doubts that my subjects would be of any interest I myself I was feeling as if I was losing my focus and most of all my purpose I thought who cares about Roma women anyway but then I found Roxana who simply struck me with the light of her being she had been through so many things but she was a fighter so much so she made me feel ashamed of every moment of my life I lacked courage so ladies and gentlemen the last story Roxana in order to not get married at 15 I had to change my religion and became a born again Christian my parents were telling me that is the time that all the girls get married at my age they would think I lost my mind that I must have my own family but I don't care I'm your child you must put up with me to which they replied ok no problem first we kill you and after we throw you out of the house and they would laugh after I had my period for the first time I was so angry that I cried the whole day because I knew that from then on I was a grown up girl and that they would expect me to get married this is the sign if a girl is physically prepared to have children this means that is the time for her to get married but I didn't feel ready at 13 to become a wife and a mother so I refused to tell them one year and four months I managed to keep my secret until the lady at the store turned me into my mother that I bought tampons and all of this just because I didn't have paper money to give her she said did you steal from the collection plate at the church UGC and now you are giving all this change I lost my temper and I said the money is not from the church Gaji woman but since you are not so saintly yourself how could you know and so the day when my mother found out all the family learned my secret they thought I was cursed or that someone put bad spells on me and that was the reason why I didn't have my period and I was not becoming a woman well let me tell you for a year all the women in my family were driving me nuts with all sorts of healing spells and liquors and potions that I had to drink and rub my body with and all of that so I could become a woman and get married I have an aunt and ten years ago when she got cancer she became Pentecostal and every Saturday she would take me to the gathering with her and that's when I first heard that if you want to remain Pentecostal you have to marry a Pentecostal too and at once I got this idea there wasn't any Pentecostal boy in any of the families my father would have married me too so I thought if I become a Pentecostal my chances to get married would be zero I was so desperate that this seemed to be the only solution now of course I'm ashamed that I could think something like that because soon I started going more often to the church I felt like this is my place that's where I have to be that's where I found myself but you know after that the struggle with my family didn't end it became even harder it was a shock for them every time a boy came to us for my hand for days and days I had to fight with my family and I would be praying please God, please don't leave me because if you do this I will die and I was telling other Pentecostal please pray for me because I don't know what more to do, how to convince them to leave me alone and God helped me after all look I'm 25 and I managed to remain unmarried looking back I realized that I will leave my family that I would have liked to be born somewhere else why God why was I born here why not somewhere else why not in any other family why in this group of Roma why do I have to dress only traditionally why without school the fact that they stopped me from going to school brought me a lot of suffering the kids told me and asked Roxana, but why don't you come to school anymore it was always hard to tell them that my parents didn't let me well, I just can't I would say I remember one day I was at the market with my mother and we met my French teacher and the teacher started to cry Madam, please let her go to school because now is the best age for her to learn my mother was impressed wow a teacher crying for a Roma child I've never seen such a thing but her impression passed quickly the men were already looking strangely at me because I wasn't like the other girls when they thought about what they thought about the school girl was who knows what idea she might come up with from the school love with a guy, she will run away with him and then we'll never find her my dad used to tell me look what people say, they are spreading rumors about you you know for many years being a Roma was a problem for me it seemed to me that I was thinking like a gadget girl and I didn't know what was happening to me but since I've been working in a project as an educational assistant for Roma children I've started to see things differently I helped the kids with their homework, we went to museum we watched movies we analyzed them and yeah, I realized that not everyone affords education that they are segregated in the school there was a case that struck me so deeply one day I got to a class where two of the children were Roma and the mother of one of them just arrived at the school to ask the teacher to move her child from the last desk near the window this is usually the place for misbehaved not to mention that the near of the window in Romania is absolutely freezing even in the summer and the child just left the hospital and the mother wanted to make sure that one gets a cold again and the teacher she answered that, yeah, she will try but after the mother left she turned to me and said I won't move him anywhere gypsies are used with difficult conditions they won't die because of a cold I don't know why but I wasn't able to tell that I'm also Roma and I left asking myself what made that teacher believe that we Roma we don't suffer like the rest of the people from then on I began to accept myself as whales and to tell it to others yes I'm a gypsy and I'm proud of it my people are here for centuries you enslaved us for five centuries you killed us in the holocaust and now you don't want to interact with us sorry, what time is Nihaila the thing is that he's getting late and I have to go back to the church well I don't know what to say just that I wish you good luck with your play and I hope to see you again goodbye, Roxana I promise you that I will produce this play because Roxana's message has to get across because she had the courage to resist tradition to revolt against the whole system because she has to hide that she's going to school and because another Roma girl hanged herself in order to not get married and before she wrote on the wall I am the school because perhaps the Roma kid near of the window is still there and because there is still a lot of hate against my own people in the world and because I have Romanian have Roma the good half is inside of me and outside of me thank you all for joining us tonight for this beautiful performance of Mihaela Dragans del Duman a very timely play I would say which speaks in many interesting ways to that theme the general theme of this year's festival which is Reimagine and Resist and we'll have a brief panel discussion about such acts of resistance and reimagining with reference to Roma theater and Roma art my name is Diana Bene I'm a full bright scholar this year at CUNY and I'm also an assistant professor of American studies at University of Bucharest in Romania and I'm very honored and very excited the panelist Mihaela Dragans who you just saw actress and playwright and activist thank you for coming all the way from Romania via Berlin I think and filmmaker George Eli who directed this piece as well as a musician and musicologist Petra Gelbert who offered beautiful live music thank you for inviting us Mihaela if you need the mic okay she already had the so Mihaela I was wondering if you can tell us a little bit about the play what made you want to write this play if I'm not mistaken this is the first play to address this topic of early marriage in Roma community it was the first play that I wrote it was like six years ago and now when I'm looking back I find it very differently it was like this I saw Roxana the last character in a documentary film about early marriage and I was very impressed by the things that she said like I'm a Roma from an untraditional family so this topic it was very away for me but what Roxana said in the documentary really impressed me and I wanted to get to know her and to get to know Roma women who are living in a traditional families and they are dealing with early marriage so I met Roxana and after I wanted to I wanted to produce this play I was like I have to do this theater play it was for the first time when I approached this topic and my identity in a theater play so for me it was like it was very important for me because it was like for the first time speaking about my identity in a theater play on the stage and I felt that it was also like a coming out and but in the end after I met all the girls and all the women that I spoke with them it was like it was not anymore about me or about my my life or my career or my it was just that I felt that these women voices have to be here so it wasn't anymore you know my thing like an actress so yeah it was a documentary theater play so I wanted I just wanted to have the voice of the women in this theater play and now I'm doing I mean this is when I'm looking back I mean it's very funny for me because I will not do I mean documentary theater is the only theater documentary theater that I did and I'm not anymore into this but because I came here in the US where Roma community is almost invisible I said okay I have to show del Duma because it's really give you an introduction into who are Roma people and yeah maybe if I will show something more complicated like another theater play that I did after maybe it will be difficult for the audience to get it and because also it was very important for me this theater play I said it was like a coming out for me and I said okay I have to say goodbye to del Duma in this way going to a festival in New York because I don't think I will perform it anymore I was performing so many times during these years and many festivals and abroad and I decided like okay I'm going to New York and I will say goodbye to del Duma you mentioned the many places where you performed this play for the past 5 years I was wondering about the reception of the play in different communities with different audiences yeah it was I played even in the Roma communities in villages in courtyards and I was really afraid about their reactions because I don't want to go there and to say okay I'm from a traditional Roma family I don't want to come here and to tell you you should stop early marriage or giving you lessons I mean I don't want to do this I recognize my privilege and I mean actually this is what I wanted to do just to raise some questions and not to be in the positions to give lessons because many times into the Roma communities I receive such a good reactions and the people I used to have a discussion with the people after every show and they even started to have polemics it was like between the generation the young the young ones started to argue with the old ones to say okay we have to stop doing this I don't want my daughter to be married I want to go to high school and yeah it was very interesting different reactions you also founded a Roma feminist theater company which is based in Bucharest and which is called Juvili Pen which is the only Roma theater company in Romania and one of the very few in Europe and this is a company and I'm quoting from your manifesto with about 4 Roma women so your goal is actually to serve as a platform of empowerment and visibility for issues affecting Roma women, right? Yeah it was like this after Del Duma I really thought okay this was the only play where I approached this topic of my identity but after Del Duma I felt that there is a need for our voices and I have to define myself as Roma and the fact that we are so few I mean the fact that we don't have a theater in Romania or in Europe are so few companies is like we are marginalized so there is a need for a theater Roma company because there are Roma actors and we need a space to reclaim it with our voices and with our bodies and to tell to people the things that I don't know I mean we are from centuries for example in Romania and yeah I mean the people they don't even know that there was Roma slavery for 5 centuries so we have to increase awareness so yeah I mean after Del Duma I just gathered this bench of Roma actresses and we created Jubli Pen Jubli Pen this is translated in feminism not feminine it's a difference actually we invented the word because before we had it in Romani language so we had it to invent it so Jubli Pen is feminine woman well for me as woman whatever and I like Jubli as woman which had to be both yeah George is a native speaker so he knows better than me yeah so yeah and after that we started to do more experimental things and more performative and things so I'm really glad that I don't know now we are 4 years after and we managed finally to have a voice in Romania and the cultural Romanian scene can you mention some of the other topics that you are addressing in your plays yeah they were considered to be really provocative also for the Roma community or for the Roma because we started to approach topics like Roma LGBT or speaking about taboo topics like the sexuality of Roma women or generalization of Roma women or transgender Roma women or sex workers yeah so we approach a lot of provocative things and we think it's the time to speak about all these topics I mean for example when we launch Gaggio Dildo you get it what means a Gaggio and Dildo you know so it was it was like for the first time we had the lesbian Roma character and it was very interesting because the Roma LGBT people came to us and they said this is for first time when we when someone take us into consideration because as Roma we are rejected from the LGBT community and as gay or lesbians we are also rejected from Roma community so there is no space for us so yeah this is what we are doing I mean of course we received a lot of criticism for approaching such provocative topics but I think art should be radical and provocative and I don't want to do something yes you also mentioned this intersectional discourse that informs your your work with the company and you often reference intersectional feminism as one of the theories that serve as inspiration for you could you please talk a bit about that yes I mean we our activism grew up all these years and we started to have organized lectures we were inspired by black feminism we said I don't know Angela Davis, Maya Angelou all that things because we wanted to create also a Roma feminism and that we wanted to separate for the white feminist and to adopt an intersectional feminism so yeah I mean all our place are about Roma women and they have an intersectional approach all right since we're quickly running out of time a brief question for George and Petra how was your encounter with Mihaila's play how did you approach the play and the text the soundscapes for Petra first of all I want to say it was it was eye-opening for me the material was eye-opening because I'm also Romani I'm from the Czech Republic and our tradition is such a funny word there's such a multitude of Romani traditions and I think again it's hard for people to understand we are as diverse as for example Jewish people so if you imagine all the different cultures that come under the word Jewish that's how it is and so we don't have the same kind of communities in the Czech Republic that Mihaila's play is talking about so to me it's like okay trying to find the parallels within my own family for example and there are some parallels and certainly you know the idea of well why should I attain a certain level of schooling now for us it's you know we're not talking going to 8th grade that's a given right but maybe why should I go get a certain diploma or go to college and really throughout Europe the issue is it's so hard for Romani people to find work that it's really hard to motivate or a boy to motivate people to stick with it through all the discrimination that happens in school so you know so it's just a lot of food for thought for me and in terms of the soundscape I was actually it was a collaborative effort and so we kept a couple of the songs that Mihaila's had there in the past one of the songs the one that came after sort of the funeral song after the death of the husband I actually took a song that I had that existed that I had already written lyrics to previously and I changed them to I mean I know none of you understood this but but they were actually very fitting tell them the name of the song so Choro Choro is the poor one and so it was a war protest song but now I was talking about you know dying and sort of the he went away from his wife and from his mother by dying so you know and then the wedding song was an actual wedding song and again you know I thought really what would be fitting and it's a song it's about a wedding but it talks about honor and it talks about sort of this idea of suffocation and it talks about a girl so then maybe you heard that at the end of that kind of very peppy wedding song it got very somber so I was trying to convey even though people don't understand Romani I was trying to convey that there are these complexities to you know these cultural phenomena what I found I was worried when she sent me to play because in America like she was saying that we're like hidden like there's not a lot and an American audience is not ignorant to the Roma situation they're just unaware they don't know about all these things and I was reading the play and I was translating into English and I would my big thing was you know I would tell her I would say you know you have to pause because they never heard this for the first time girls getting married at 13 and to me it was very normal I grew up in a Roma family very traditional in America they're a generation American and we still do all that I related to every one of her characters every one of her characters seemed normal to me every single one because even in America that goes on it's actually very interesting Diana because you know American laws protected our people because much like the Pennsylvania when we came over we kept all of the traditions and we were allowed to because of American law and you know America is a melting pot but as far as the play is going this was very powerful and I had to switch things and have her say it differently so you can take it in because like I said you're not they're unaware of such powerful topics as she did in Berlin and you know Budapest and all these places they know about Roma people and it's a different delivery because a lot of Europeans as we know they don't they're racist towards Roma people so her delivery is different you know so that's that was challenging for me a bit but I'm glad you like it I was so worried when I was sending it over to her and she goes no George continue I love it it's fine I really love it because he made it really local especially the first story all these things with Nancy Reagan I mean I really enjoyed it well yeah I had to fit in and I wasn't worried because I knew this was a New York audience so but it is very challenging I just want to tell the audience that a lot of my family won't come to see the play because of the topics and not because I mean they'll see her she's not forbidden from the family anything like that it's just it's not the provocative topics are not spoke about amongst each other you know and it's not a it is progressing here in America it's not a feminine thing and it's not a masculine thing or anything like that it's just an embarrassing thing that's what it's turned into like oh no that's embarrassing you can't say that like what she just said about her second play I don't know if you noticed I turned to her like oh my god I'm so glad my daughter in laws are not here but yeah thank you for for this amazing effort of directing and performing in me highland playing beautiful music maybe we can take one question from the audience the lucky one yes yeah our comments thoughts on on the play yes given the stories you were telling could you just say a little bit about some of the the factual matter of background how frequent or not frequent are Roma and Gaiju marriages and in general how do more traditional Roma communities treat Roma who marries someone not Roma yeah in America or in Europe yeah um I know the answer is going to be different for every group in every country and every collective I come from intermixed marriage and can I reproduce my monologue from Roma army when I'm speaking about my intermage family it's like this but maybe it's an exception it's like I have to speak to you about my intermixed marriage between my Gaiju father and my Roma mother my Gaiju father loved her so much very rarely he could hurt a dirty gypsy and he beat her up only when she really deserved it it's not very familiar um actually here in America um it's not it's frowned upon because it's about preservation of the culture and not we don't, I don't know how anybody else it's not about racism it's about preservation of the culture and we mentioned it's much like the Jewish people Petra mentioned it's like when they're before Israel when you know the Jewish mom would want you know marry a nice Jewish girl don't do that it's a survival instinct but when it does happen it happens a lot in my family we just want the Gaiju person to convert or you know you know it's true though it's like and when they don't want to convert let's say their Italian will say like well why don't you want to convert well you know I want to preserve well don't worry the government of Italy is preserving your community we don't have that so convert to Romani that's what we would say alright maybe we'll end on this note thank you all again for joining us tonight and let's give another round of applause for Lila and George and Petra and thank you very much for being here tonight thank you so much and thank you George and Petra and Diana for everything that you did these days you know I love you excuse me hi everyone can we just clear the space so we can set up for the play that's starting at 8pm