 Good evening everybody, I think you're getting started. Welcome, welcome everybody to Casa Italiana, Zerilli Marimo, my name is Eugenio Rifini, I'm the chair of the Department of Italian Studies and on behalf of Casa Italiana and the Department of Italian Studies, I'm really delighted to welcome you all tonight for our second event in the Black Italy series which we started a few weeks ago. This is a new series but kind of an ongoing conversation sort of developing out of previous projects which Casa Italiana sponsored in the past few years. The idea is to really broaden up the conversation about what blackness means in Italian culture and history in a very broad trans-historical sense and also in a trans-geographical sense. And tonight we are sort of bringing together two events which were meant to be happening in different days but as you all know Tuesday was a snow day and we were all home instead of being here together. So we will begin with what was supposed to be happening on Tuesday which is a conversation discussion with a fantastic panel of speakers and then we will move on to performance which was supposed to be happening tonight. So I think the evening will be a little longer than expected initially but certainly even more interesting in many ways. I will keep my introduction super short because I want to leave the floor to our fantastic speakers. Our panel discussion is entitled a contemporary theater by Italians of African descent, the playwrights, the stories and the challenges. And the panel features five speakers so I will just follow the order which I have here on my screen. Playwright Nalini Vidula Mutusami who's the author of The Foreigner's Smile and we will get to know her and her work more tonight. Then we have Margarita Laira who's a translator based at the University of Kent. Elena Bellina, a colleague here from our department at NYU. Isabella Livorni and other colleague here from the department. And finally Laura Caparotti, the artistic director of Cairo's Italy Theater who's also kind of the mastermind of all things theatrical happening at Casa Italiana. So and a true force of nature. I'm happy to sort of report on that. I mean I can confirm. So and then after the panel which is gonna last sort of 30 minutes or so we will have a reading of The Foreigner's Smile, the play by Nalini. So let's just welcome our guests and let's get started with the conversation. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Gennio. Thank you everybody here at Casa Italiana. We will be very fast and so we can get them to talk and tell us more about tonight. But I'm going to introduce again Black Italia, this series of events, book discussion, theatrical performances tonight and next week we'll see more film screenings, lectures sponsored by NYU Casa Italiana, Zerilli Marimo in collaboration with the NYU Department of Italian Studies. And these conversations aim to promote the on the intersection of race, identity and migration in contemporary Italy are conceived in connection with courses taught here in the Department of Italian Studies. Black Italia revisits the format launched by Casa Italiana's virtual salons. These courses on Black Italia held virtually during the pandemic by bringing together artists and scholars in order to address questions about race and racialization across Italian history and its multifaceted diasporic geography. And tonight as you can see, we have lots of people, lots of Italian that are really diasporic Italians in different continents in different countries. And I leave the floor to my colleague Isabella Livorni to hear more about the events. Yes, just a little bit of publicity for the other events in the series. Last month was an event with sociologist Ann Mourning who's here at NYU, a conversation about her book, An Ugly Word, Rethinking Race in Italy and the United States. Tuesday, February 20th here there will be the screening of Elia Mutamid's film Taliem. Then on Friday, March 29th, Uba Cristina Lifara and Simone Brioni will discuss Simone's film Oltre Bordi and there will be the screening of the film as well. And then on April 26th, there will be a lecture by Janie Cole on musical encounters between the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia and early modern Europe. So those are just things to put on the calendar. So I start now. The reason I wanted to do these series is for a long time I had this feeling that it was Black History Month and I was thinking, what can we do as Italians about Black History Month? Which as you know is very important here in the United States. And then one year ago, almost exactly one year ago I was talking, I met Marguerita Laira who works, teaches, but really works and is another mastermind in London for everything that is Italian theater. And she was, I cannot express how passionate she was about the fact that there are some playwrights in Italy, there is immigrant playwrights or of descent that are new Italians. Italians that came with the family. There are beautiful playwrights, there is beautiful artist. And she told me not only about this play but about performing in Italy, which is a series that she curated with the Italian, through the Italian Cultural Institute in London about the immigrant artist. And she's going to tell us so much better than me about performing in Italy. And so I came back and I was like, we must do that. We must show what is happening in Italy. When I was a young actress in Italy the only difference is, and we're talking about a long time ago, very long. The only difference was the artist from the south of Italy and artist from the north of Italy. That was the big difference. And so I think it's beautiful and it's important to have this conversation and to discover these artists. So I first, when I start with Margherita, so if you can tell us a little bit about your work and your and performing in Italy and then we'll go to our start of the night. Does this work? Yes. Good evening, everyone. So as Laura said, we met a year ago and I was telling her about my work as a migrant myself. I am a professor of theater at the University of Kent. Of course I'm influenced by discourses in the UK and in British culture, but also Britain is influenced by what's happening in the US. And of course there's a huge, as it's supposed to be a huge interest in black culture, the black diaspora. So black British plays were something that I was very much into when I was studying, teaching them to my students. And then there's quite a lot of African American writers in London that I was exposed to. And then at some point I just thought, but where are the black Italian playwrights? And I realized I didn't know enough about this. So I started researching the field and asked people who worked in Italy, could they tell me who are the writers? And so I spoke to several people and most of them said, well, I don't think there is anybody, in fact. And so I wasn't happy with that answer and I was sure that there would be quite a few. And so I didn't bump into Nalini that way. I had to dig a little bit deeper and I started collaborating with an organization called Fabula Mundi. I also started collaborating with another festival called Souk in Genoa and we curated a series of 15 minute video portraits of Italian theater makers with a global majority or a migrant background. And those videos are online, they're available on Vimeo and on Rye Play. And they, essentially we wanted to highlight all the fantastic work that so-called new Italians are doing in Italy and how they're reinventing, rethinking what it means to be Italian through theater. And after that experience, I hadn't found a writer, I'd found producers, I'd found actors, dancers, directors, but writers I was still looking for and it was this way that I thought I should approach Fabula Mundi to launch a call for Italian playwrights with a migration background. And we launched this call and we received many plays and then that's how we found this play and how we got to know Nalini. Thank you and Fabula Mundi is a very important project that is happening in Europe, was created I believe and maybe wrong by Pav, which is an Italian production, the theater production and it's really a network to exchange plays, to discover new plays by Europeans in the different countries. And so they do this important work and they translate all the plays that they chose every year, right? So and as you can hear, I already made so many mistakes in presenting this because again, it's something that and it's very interesting for me. It's something that is new to me and so I'm always like struggling Italian playwright but African descent, are they the new Italians? Yes, for me, they are the new Italians because again, I was not used and I'm very, I'm being very honest on that. You know, it's like I'm happy to see this kind of a multicultural country finally, even though I don't think we still, we feel so much a multicultural country yet but we are becoming a wonderful multicultural country. And now, so let me ask Nalini, who comes from far away, at least I thought it was very far away, the Mauritius, that we always hear about the Mauritius, the beautiful islands, they're not so far, I discovered and discover so much about these islands but I'm not going to ask her to give us the history of the Mauritius, but more like, so you came to Italy when you were 10, right? Yes. With your family. With my family, yeah. And what is interesting, I'm sorry, if her mother came first, we usually think, if her mother came first and then the family. So how did you start writing theater? How did you discover that you wanted to write theater? And what theater, that there was an urgency, there was just the beauty of theater, there was a white theater. Okay, let's speak. Good evening, everybody. Thank you to be here. Thank you, Lara, for this opportunity. Thank you, Margherita, because without you, nothing would be possible. I will not be here this night. And so the story is really, really long, but I will be faster to resume it. And, okay, I began to write for theater in the past five years. So I, I didn't think I can write for theater. I didn't think I can write in Italian because there are so many writers, so many playwrights who are good. And I always feel that I wasn't, I have the possibility, not only the possibility, but also the capability to express myself in Italian, in such a good Italian. So, but at the certain moment, there was, I approached the theater and then I began to think that I, maybe I can write for theater. Maybe it will not go far, but anyway, I can express myself through theater. So I began to do some workshop with some teachers who teach me how to write for theater actually. And then after, at a certain point of my career, that was not my career at all, but I saw online, it was during the pandemic, the COVID pandemic. And so I was at home, I was all, has everybody closed in my house. And so I began, I saw the call of Margherita, that Margherita was speaking about before. And I was really impressed that they were looking for Italian with the migrant background. So I say, okay, this can be my opportunity, why not? So I wrote the text to participate to the call. And I wrote it in three weeks, really, really rapidly because there was a deadline. And I remember there was so much I want to express in this text. And so I say, okay, I need to do it, even if I will not win, but I know that I have this, all these feelings that are burning me inside. And just I just want to put them away far from me on the paper, on my laptop. Not in the... So I, and then I send it. And after I forgot that I send it, and then I receive, I remember the days that I receive, they made that tell me that I won the call. And so I say, oh, okay, something is happening, but what is happening? And then after all, they explain me that they will translate the text. And then we will have the possibility to work with some actors to test the text. And this, we did it unfortunately online because we were always on pandemic moment. And after that, yes, we tested in English. The first time I listened to my text, it was in English, not in Italian. But it happened so often to me that all my texts are trans, not all, but so often my texts are translated in other languages. And the first time I listened to them, they are in other languages. It's happened in English, in Spanish. So because I don't know why maybe because my way of writing is maybe more, I don't want to say international, but yeah, multi-cultural. So it speaks to a lot of audience. So. And let me ask you, and then we have to wrap up, let me ask you how easy or difficult is to, in Italy right now, you just stage this play that we are going to hear tonight in Italy. So is it a challenge? I know that there are not many artists, black artists, actors, there are not so many. And so it is a challenge. Is it a challenge or how? How is it? It's hard. Yeah, it's really hard because, okay, I put it on stage with my, the director with whom I work with, and Alberto Cavallieri. And we try to find, yeah, of course, actors with not only backgrounds, migratory backgrounds, but also that feel that this history belong also to them. Because I think that this kind of story begin, become powerful where the artist, the actors, feel is connected or connected with this kind of history, of message, of course. Yeah, it's really hard because we are a small reality that don't have so much pocket money too. But we are trying to do our best to put it on stage because we also, we have a lot of response from the audience that are really, really interesting in this kind of history, not only black audience, but also the Italian part, the post-Italian. Now we are different Italian, but we are all Italian, I mean. Yeah. It's not easy, see, it's not easy. Yeah, because I don't like to use white and black. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's difficult for me to express this kind of feeling. But we will find a way. Yeah, I know. The last question is, is it, how this play was, well, it was received well. And by the way, Nalini was one of the finalists with another play of the Premio Riccione, which is like the most important award in Italy for playwrights. So she has some talent, it seems. A little bit. Yeah, yeah. So do you see, and this is for Margherita and for Nalini, do you see that there is a space for this kind of theater talking about these issues and these, you know, families or everything, there is a space. Do you think that there will be more and more space? I think that we are doing history in Italy, not only me and Margherita, but also all the actors, all the participants of performing Italy. We are trying to change, and change is taking a lot of time, we know. But we believe in this kind of change. We know that we will need to fight a lot and we are doing it. I hope that also, yeah, there is space, not so much. There are small realities, yeah, of theater that are concerned on this kind of topics. But I think that if the big one choose, give us not only me an opportunity, it will make the difference. Absolutely. I completely agree. There will be a space. There will be a space. When I read this play, I pictured, I don't know how many years ahead where this play or a play like this or one of your plays will be staged in a very important theater. And that day, I'm waiting for that. I hope that day comes very soon. It will. And the thing that I love most is this change is happening in theater. Because theater is considered the last art, the least important art. Instead, this change is happening in theater. And it is important because it's something that we experience and is live. And so I'm very, very happy that this change is going through theater. So do you have any question or we just wrap up for, and then we have, yes, no, yes. This morning, on Wednesday, they were kind enough to visit our classes and talk to our students who were really thrilled about the play that they read in Italian and in English. They had many questions, but the main point is you'll hear will be the question of language and linguistic contamination between among the many languages Nalini grew up with, Italian, French, French Creole from the Mauritius, English, Hindu, Tamil, you'll see. And they did an enormous effort to make all this wonderful and meaningful linguistic play translate and work in English. So Nalini and then Margherita, do you want to say something about all the way you work in your theater and in your plays and make and convey meanings through these words? Words are meaningful and they change everything. I mean, I use different languages because I grew up with different languages that are all in my body, in my mind. And when I express myself in Italian, I know that there is one musicality, yeah? And then when I change language, there's another musicality. And so for me, there are a lot of things that I can't express really well, it's just one language. I mean, it's because of the history of the island of Mauritius. Mauritius was an inhabitant island and then first the Dutch came to colonize the island, inhabitant island, and then after the French they bought the slaves from Africa. And then after the French, we have also the British that came with all the slaves from India. And then we have also Chinese and Muslim Arabic that came for commerce. And then we have all this kind of, all this culture that began to live in the same little teeny space but survive. And this is a good situation because we don't, we have never had a war, nothing like this, no fight. And we grew up with this kind of not only respect but also value of all the culture of the language. When I was a child in Mauritius, I grew up learning at school Hindi or Tamil because it was the language of my ancestor. And so it was important, yes, to give this space for all the people that have different backgrounds to give also an opportunity for the language, not only for the culture of food or maybe of dress code but also of language. So we have a lot of, we give a lot of value to language. And we speak also a lot of language and we switch on and off from French to Creole to Hindi to English because of this. And so when we speak, it depends on what we need to express. So we use all these languages to express ourselves. And I think it's beautiful because there is a rhythm and musicality also for me, language is my music, my old music. And so I can't write without using all this in my writing. Agree, do you want to add anything? Yes, as I say, this is a very, very complex play to perform. So you're going to see actors who've had very little time to come to grips with a multilingual play where the main, one of the main themes is misunderstanding, mispronunciation, broken language, not being able to say what you mean, saying something and actually it coming across completely differently and the inability to code switch, the misunderstandings that come out of multiculturalism. And I just love the humor in the play and I love the co-existence of those languages and the opportunities that there are to explore how languages and cultures come together. So this is the beauty of the play but it's very, very difficult to perform. So you'll be amazed that the actors being able to achieve in such little time. And yes, so we end now the conversation here. Thank you, do you want to say anything? Thank you Isabella, thank you Elena, thank you Annalini, thank you Margarita. We're going, yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you. We are going to say goodbye to the streaming audience and I wanna thank not only Casa Italiana for the streaming service but also all around the other comment for this streaming service. We are very honored to be part of the platform today. And we will have to set up the stage so we have, you have five, 10 minutes to stretch if you like. And then we go to the foreigner's mile. Yes, no, let's not end it. Yes, Eugenia, yes. I just would like to say something. I mean, we are particularly happy about this series because it's really meant to be in conversation not only with you guys sort of visiting us but also with our classes. I mean, I think, and I would like to thank Isabella and Elena who have been doing an amazing job at really thinking about this series in terms of really combining our sort of academic output with our teaching. And I think that's really part of our mission here. And I forgot to say that earlier so I just wanted to be sure to say it now. So, I'm done. It's not recorded anymore because we stopped the streaming. But it's not recorded anymore because we stopped the streaming. It's not recorded anymore because we stopped the streaming. Okay. You are with us. After, I know we don't have a lot of time but after the reading if you wanna ask a couple of questions to Nalini Margherita, they're going to be here of course. Okay, you have 10 minutes. Five, five ish.