On
27-28 July 2017, the First International Roma Storytelling Festival was
organized in Studio K Theater, Budapest, by Independent Theater Hungary and
thus Hungary was put on the map of Storytelling Festivals.
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| Graphic: Norbert Oláh, graphical post-production: Aurélia Nemes |
During the two-day-long festival, the spectators saw four plays by four
artists. After the shows, the artists were in conversation.
I declare atmy own risk by Alina Serban was
translated into Hungarian by Beáta Adorján, who also moderated the conversation
after the performance.
The play of Richard R. O’Neill, The Hardest Word, was performed by Edina Dömök, who has been
working with Independent Theater since 2014. The play was translated by
Viktória Kondi. Directed by Rodrigo Balogh.
Mária Bogdán moderated the discussion with the audience.
The dramatized version of Mariella Mehr’s novel Stone Age was performed by Dijana Pavlovic,
accompanied by Tamás Seres on violin and vocal. The conversation was moderated
by Kinga Júlia Király, the translator of the play.
Finally, the festival ended
with the show of Mihaela Dragan, Del Duma: SheSpeaks, where Gusztáv Balogh sung unaccompanied the actress on guitar. The
discussion after the performance was moderated by the translator of the play,
Beáta Adorján.
Transmit to
posterity
Theatre is the art of the moment. In order to transmit these plays to
posterity, we have to turn to the genre of film for help. The focal scenes were
recorded in a studio with the technical supervision of Róbert Maly
cinematographer, and the students of Central European University, led by Jeremy
Braverman, Media and Visual Education Specialist,took in-depth interviews with
the artists.
The edited versions of the focal scenes and the
in-depth interviews provide the opportunity to show the theatre artists and the
protagonist of the plays parallelly. These cinematographic works outline precisely
almost all challenges that Roma intellectuals face in the 21th century.
Great
success and professional recognition
Several media outlets reported on the Festival both in Hungary and in Romania.
Most of the chairs had to be removed from the auditorium of Studio K Theater
and they were replaced with pillows placed on the floor, as an average of 85
spectators attended the shows instead of the originally expected 50 persons.
After the Festival, unprecedented amount of
professional reviews were published, and in exceptionally high quality.
Educational material on Roma theatre
In the case of Roma people’s and communities’ theatrical representation,
what come up are almost always problems, troubles and tragedies.
This festival put self-representation and values in the spotlight.
The question arises: how to spread these values? Our theatre aims to show
the life and situation of Gypsy protagonists in the plays to mostly Roma
secondary school and university students. Together with the artists, we have
laid the foundations of an educational methodology on Roma dramas which was
finalized by the methodology group of Independent Theater. From autumn 2017 on,
we run two-session workshops of 90-300 minutes in high schools, universities,
special colleges and informal groups for mostly Roma youngsters on this topic.
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| Marton Illes, Dijana Pavlovic, Richard R. O'Neill, Tamás Szegedi, Mihaela Dragan, Viktória Kondi, Rodrigo Balogh and Ágota Szentannai |
Continuation
One doesn’t have to wait long for the program to continue. Independent
Theater plans to organize the “Roma Heroes” – 2nd International Roma
Storytelling Festival, focusing on young and professional storytellers, at the
end of May 2018.
The open call for application will be launched in
2017 and it will be disseminated in Europe.