Romanian Roma use theater to address bigotry

A feminist Roma theater company is staging plays to highlight the racism and sexism that Roma women are subjected to in Romania. The group uses art to raise awareness of the social issues facing marginalized Roma, the largest ethnic minority in Europe.

|
Andreea Campeanu/Reuters
Elena Duminica braids Mihaela Dragan's hair before performing in their play 'Gadjo Dildo,' during the 'Roma Theatre is not Nomadic' tour, in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Nov. 5, 2017.

Inside the gray walls of an independent theater in the northwest Romanian city of Cluj, Roma actress Elena Duminica braided the hair of her colleague Mihaela Dragan ahead of their show.

As she braided, the theater tested the lights for the play, "Gadjo Dildo," a cabaret-like performance inspired by real stories about the sexism and racism Roma women are often subject to in Romania.

The title is a play on words from a 1997 film, "Gadjo Dilo," which means "Crazy Stranger" in Romani, the language of the 2 million Roma in the country, around a tenth of the population.

It is the first play staged by the Romanian feminist Roma theater company Giuvlipen, which Ms. Dragan co-founded in 2014 because she saw no alternative for the way Roma people were represented in the arts.

"We advocate for Roma artists to have a voice, because Roma art was pretty marginalized and never valued, always stereotyped. I think this is our role, to make Roma art mainstream and cool, so that people come to our shows and talk about them."

There was no word for feminism in Romani, so Dragan and her colleagues created one – Giuvlipen. The troupe has staged performances inspired by real events that deal with discrimination, arranged under-age marriages, lack of access to education, mental illness, and Roma LGBT issues.

The Roma are Europe's largest ethnic minority. Out of an estimated 10 million to 12 million, more than half live in the European Union, which Romania joined in 2007, and many are victims of prejudice and social exclusion.

In Romania, the World Bank has estimated 9 out of 10 Roma live in severe material deprivation, most of them children, lacking access to basic education and health care.

Social inclusion programs and anti-discrimination laws are in place, but racism against the minority goes back centuries in the country, where Roma were kept as slaves by monasteries or local overlords until the 19th century.

Roughly 25,000 Roma were deported from Romanian-controlled territory during World War II, when the country was an ally of Nazi Germany. Almost half of them died.

Giuvlipen tells these stories, while trying to show Roma culture is "alive, contemporary, vanguardist, progressive," said Dragan, who also acts at Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theatre.

Throughout the fall, Giuvlipen – based in capital Bucharest – toured the country under the headline "Roma Theatre is not Nomadic," campaigning to open a state-funded Roma theater.

Romania funds theaters for its Jewish, Hungarian, and German minorities. Giuvlipen has yet to make a formal request for funding, but have invited city hall officials to their shows.

"There is need for contemporary Roma culture, because people just know the sensational things they see on TV," said Giuvlipen member and actress Zita Moldovan. "A Roma theater could tell stories, it would be useful for both us and the Romanian population," she said.

This story was reported by Reuters.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Romanian Roma use theater to address bigotry
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2018/0122/Romanian-Roma-use-theater-to-address-bigotry
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe