Current Projects (2024-25)

European Roma Theater Festivals

Budapest, Rome, Bucharest. Three capitals, three festivals, thousands of people from a minority whose voice, through art, fills Europe. The project highlights the stories, values, challenges, and dramatic heroes of the largest and most marginalised ethnic minority in the EU – the Roma. By featuring authentic self-representation in theatre, partnership aims to empower Roma youth and raise awareness among the wider population. The festivals, held in Rome, Bucharest, and Budapest, will each present at least two international performances.

Perform Europe Grant
EUR 60,000

Partners

Artistic Works

Waiting for Bo
Producers: A.P.S. Rampa Prenestina
The italian performance refers to Beckett’s masterpiece and the endless waiting and vulnerability of Roma people with immigrant backgrounds living in Italy in segregated camps without any documents, despite being born in Italy. The performance highlights actual human rights issues such as citizenship, access to education and work, life in Italy’s institutional slums, linguistic minorities, and loss of cultural identity.
Cannibals (HU)
Producers: Independent Theater Hungary
In 1782 in a region of Hungary close to the Slovakian border, more than 40 Roma people were executed. They were accused of eating 31 people. This extremely cruel real-life story is not widely known, although it was an act of genocide, in which innocent people, just because of their ethnic origin and the racist functioning of the court, were killed. The phenomenon of blood libel was often used against Jewish and other ethnic minorities, whose culture and community became stigmatised. It led to a process of dehumanisation, ultimately enabling the killing of the given group members to be ‘justified’.

The play highlights the historical perspectives of anti gypsyism and the danger of hate and the malfunctioning of the courts. It is directed by Emilia Boda-Novy, the first female Roma director in Hungary. The goal is to protect historical remembrance and inspire the audience to safeguard the state of law, so that such events can never be repeated. As the contrary of dehumanisation, audience members will be inspired to find human commonalities in outgroup members.
Caliban and the Witch
Producers: Giuvlipen Theatre
‘Caliban and the Witch’ is a reinterpretation of Shakespeare's ‘The Tempest’, inspired by Silvia Federici's book of the same name, as well as the revolutionary texts and speeches of figures such as Frantz Fanon, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, and Ghassan Kanafani. The play is set in a fictional reality where the power dynamics between white Europeans and people of colour are reversed, challenging the audience to confront the deeply rooted legacy of colonialism, slavery, and systemic oppression.

In this reimagined world, the Romani people, who historically never had their own nation, rise to power and colonise Western Europe. Prospero, a Romani Christian governor, creates an empire built on the subjugation of white Europeans. His mission to spread Christianity and civilise the ‘barbaric’ Europeans mirrors the historical justifications used by colonial powers to legitimise the enslavement and exploitation of indigenous peoples.

Tour Dates

Photo credits

Ihász Tina Photography

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