“Bring your washing in, the Gypsies are coming!” It may sound like an age old prejudice but it resounds again as the EU citizens’ fears of foreign infiltration are renewed towards the largest ethnic minority in Europe (over 10 million people). Wherever Romas are based in Europe today, they are confronted by stereotypes, discrimination and exclusion. The National Socialists murdered them in concentration camps. During the war in Yugoslavia, they were followed, killed or expelled under the premises of ‘ethnic cleansing’. Unemployment and poverty force many Roma to emigrate to countries where they are considered “a poor burden, needy foreigners, as aggressive beggars, as uninvited providers of services, as social parasites, as intruders”. The governments of western EU countries push the responsibility back to the countries of origin through their asylum and immigration policies.
How do members of this transnational people describe themselves? What is the image they have of the society which makes up the majority in the country in which they live? In their eyes, what would be necessary for a felicitous life together? What perspectives do they see in a Europe of the future?
In their fifth work at the Brunswick (Braunschweig) state theatre, werkgruppe2 focus their view once more on the theme of Europe. Together with Roma musicians and a multi-national acting ensemble, the theatre project has evolved from interviews made in Romania, France and Germany and following the opening performances in Brunswick, will tour around Europe.
with: Simon Bourgade, Gina Calinoiu, Ursula Hobmair, Flavius Retea and the musicans Dejan Jovanovic (Violine) and Dejan Jovanovic (Akkordeon)
directing: Julia Roesler
concept and text: werkgruppe2
research: Bytyci/Merzhäuser/Roesler
design: Charlotte Pistorius
video images: Hamze Bytyci/ Veronika Patočková
dramaturgy: Silke Merzhäuser/ Christine Besier
photos: Volker Beinhorn/ Isabel Winarsch
Premiere: 23.02.2017
more shows:
25.02./28.02./ 1.03./2.03./ 4.04./5.04.2017 Braunschweig, Husarenstrasse
31.03./ 1.04.2017 Hannover, Pavillon
2.04.2017 Göttingen, Junges Theater
8.04.2017 Berlin, Heimathafen Neukölln
11./12./13.06.2017 Timisoara, Nationaltheater
14./15.11.2017 Nancy, Théâtre de la manufacture
“The doc-play ‘Gypsies’ is an empathic as well as risky theatre piece about the Roma people. The intense performance transforms sobering life stories into absorbing, moving personal laments, heartbreaking glimpses into the soul drawn from everyday situations. Music takes over where words end, melancholic and rhythmically stirring to a point of ecstasy. Without form and measure? Is that what we fanatics of order fear? Intimacy develops from trust, understanding through knowledge: a strenuous causality. This is why there was great applause for the successful experiment. Respect is won during this evening and it is well worth it.” Braunschweiger Zeitung
Produced by werkgruppe2. Co-Produced by Staatstheater Braunschweig, Nationaltheater Timisoara and Théâtre de la Manufacture Nancy
Funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes, MWK/ Landes Niedersachsen and Stiftung Niedersachsen