#romapregnancyrap

[genderassignment]

Beyond the Roma Caravan: A Series on Roma Women Creatives, by Suzana Milevska

Roma Pregnancy Rap, by Mihaela Drăgan

I had several different ideas for the content and format of my first feminist “assignment” after Melissa Potter’s kind invitation to contribute to her feminist blog-project Gender Assignment. I’ve never met Melissa in person and although we communicated for several years already it wasn’t easy to decide how to contribute and meet her high expectations. While I was still contemplating which direction to take I attended Mihaela Drăgan’s presentation at District in Berlin and my dilemma has been resolved in a very spontaneous way. And not only did this encounter helped my decision about the first post, it also motivated me to conceptualise my “gender assignments.” 

Beyond the Roma Caravan is going to be a series of portraits of Roma women and a discussion about the potential impact of their work on contemporary Roma communities and European societal and political attitudes towards Romany women in Europe. In my four posts I’ll focus on Roma women who continuously contribute towards dismantling the patriarchy and the conservative gender relations, both inside and outside of Roma communities. Moreover in conditions of risen anti-Roma racism in Eastern and Western Europe I find extremely important to focus on positive examples of feminist agency. In my view these women’s work is ground-breaking in different fields: visual arts, social theatre, performance, video, film, curating, and most importantly their artistic practice goes far beyond the stereotypical folkloric representation of Roma communities as only nomadic, conservative, and uneducated.                                                                                                           

Beyond the Roma Caravan: Meet Mihaela Drăgan

The first post is not an interview, nor is an essay. It’s also not a formal review of an art event. I just want to share my first impressions after an exciting encounter. Hence here I enclose my written portrait of Mihaela Drăgan, an actress and playwright of Roma descent living and working in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. 1

I decided to write about my first encounter with Mihaela Drăgan and to dedicate my first post to her work as a kind of recommendation to others who might not know much about Giuvlipen - the first Roma feminist theatre company formed by professional actresses of Roma origins in Bucharest. Moreover not only did this meeting helped me to decide what to address in my first blog, but also it incited me for the future three contributions to think in a similar direction: to share this space with several strong Roma women (artists, activists, curators actresses) from my region that I had opportunity to meet during the last ten years. 

In the short announcement about Mihaela Drăgan’ talk in Berlin it was announced that “she will cover the discourse around Roma art practice, which has developed parallel to the escalation of anti-Gypsyism and increasing stereotypification of Roma women.” She did much more. 

She talked about the spontaneous formation of the unique feminist theatre collective Giuvlipen in Bucharest in 2014. 

She talked about the meaning of the name Giuvlipen (Romani: feminism) and the difficulty of translating the term in Romanese. 2

She talked about the organisational and working strategies in the theatre as collaborative and about theatre’s structure as “sisterhood”.

She talked about not having a proper space for rehearsing and performing, so it was made clear the theatre is not nomadic by choice (they perform in different theatres, open public spaces, and galleries).

She talked about their play Gadjo-Dildo (Not-Roma Dildo), about how humour helps them to address the most contentious topics as racism, sexism, body, sexuality, conservativism within Roma community towards LGBT.

She talked about patriarchy and self-empowerment, again with lot of humour and wit…

She talked about the limited budget, often amounting to “0” - particularly at the beginning...

She talked about the participatory performances that took place in public spaces or in galleries. Yet she made a distinction between theatre performances and art performance not claiming the later...

She talked about the unexpected local and international success (recently she’s been nominated for The Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award, granted by New York’s Women’s Professional Theater League.)

She talked about the surprise of the audience that the Romani actresses were professionally educated and trained… 

She talked about the issues with language because not all actresses working in the theatre, although Roma by descent, know Romani language, but they always try to insert some sentences or words as political statements.

She talked about the paradoxes in the conditions of Roma in Romania during the previous, socialist times and now: how some rights were lost and anti-Roma racism escalated, although Roma in Romania had been officially recognised as ethnic minority only after Ceausescu. 

She talked about the failed (fortunately) political initiative of the Romanian Government to bring back the term Tigani, Romanian citizens and to avoid the homonymy between “Roma” and “Romanian” 3 

She talked about Giuvlipen’s interest in addressing many taboos and stereotypes regarding Roma untimely marriages (Del Duma), as well as about more recent neoliberal phenomenon of forced eviction (La Harneală). She stressed on her documentary, research, and biopic approach towards playwriting although the final plays’ versions are fictionalised. 

She talked, although very shortly, with me. After her invigorating presentation and the long Q&A session I wanted to talk more, but we were all very tired. I just managed to tell her that I wish I knew more about her and the theatre Giuvlipen before, while I curated several exhibitions focusing on Roma issues or when I’ve written the text “Women Bear Witness”.  I am often criticised for over-theorising so I’ll just stop here hoping that theory will come anyway, as a critical friend and companion who inevitably joins us when so much has been done in feminist practice of Roma women that yet needs to be reflected.  

NOTES

1. I am not a theatre expert, but I followed Mihaela’s confident presentation in the context of the event “Producing Roma Feminist Art” with a great interest because of my long-term involvement in researching Romani artists and my curatorial projects dedicated to their art practice.  

2. In their own words: “Our performances are made by, about and for Roma women, with the goal of contributing to the empowerment of Roma women in their living communities. Our group creates theatre performances based on life stories of Roma women, about their difficulties living between a traditional patriarchal community and a demanded integration into the dominant (often racist) Romanian community.” Giuvlipen Theatre Company, Romania, East European Performing Platform

3. The strengthening of racist right-wing politics across Europe was particularly revealed and even fortified the anti-Romaism and racism in the case of the official Romanian Government’s initiative from 2010 for reversing the established name Roma to Tigan. Fortunately the Parliament didn’t accept the proposal. See: Rupert Wolfe Murray, “Romania's Government Moves to Rename the Roma”, Time, Bucharest Wednesday, Dec. 08, 2010 Last Accessed 10.04.2018

4. Milevska, Suzana. ‘Women Bear Witness’, n-paradoxa, Vol. 28, 2011: 58-64.

Bio

Suzana Milevska (born 1961, Bitola, Macedonia) is an art theorist and curator with degrees in Art History from “St. Cyrill and Methodius” University in Skopje and in Philosophy and History of Art and Architecture from Central European University in Prague. She holds a  PhD from Goldsmiths College in the UK. She has published many essays since the early nineties in magazines such as Kinopis, Kulturen zhivot, Golemoto staklo, Siksi, Index, Nu, Springerin, Flash Art, Afterimage, Curare, Blesok, and has also curated over 70 exhibitions and international projects in Skopje (Little Big Stories 1998, Always Already Apocalypse 1999, Words-Objects-Acts 2000, Capital and Gender 2001), Istanbul (Writing and Difference 1992, Self and Other 1994, Desiring Machines 1997, Always Already Apocalypse 1999), Providence-USA (Liquor Amnii II 1997), Stockholm (Little Big Stories 1998), Berlin, Stuttgart and Bonn (Correspondences 2001), Utrecht (Call the Witness, 2011), Vienna (Roma Protocol 2011, To One's Name, 2013), Ljubljana (The Renaming Machine, 2010, Inside Out-Not So White Cube, 2015). Her book Gender Difference in the Balkans was published in 2010. She was the curator of the Open Graphic Art Studio of the Museum of the City of Skopje for seven years. She was a professor of art history and theory at the Faculty of Fine Arts (2010-2012) in Skopje, and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (2013-2015). Currently is a Principal Researcher at Polytechnic University in Milan.