When Roma-Feminism became Theatre
There are probably very few occasions when adding a single letter to a certain title can transform its meaning as radically as in the case of today’s ground-breaking show by the theatre company Giuvlipen (‘Feminism’, in Romanes), Gadjo Dildo (2015), which will go down in history. A single letter, ‘d’, changes everything and is enough to make the unsuspected aesthetic, poetic and political turn through an obvious sarcastic wink to the film Gadjo Dilo by Tony Gatlif. Under the direction of Mihail Lukacs, the actresses Mihaela Drăgan, Zita Moldovan and Elena Dumincă bring the work to life through their lucid and ironic representation of three archetypes that reveal the way in which the aspirations, fantasies, longings and projections present in the intoxicated soul of the dominant society blatantly constrain Roma women. The signs of mystery, exoticism, deforming stereotypes, hyper-sexualization and exceptionality are exposed without taboos, as heavy burdens to be deconstructed. The actor and choreographer Paul Dunca, in his role as Master of Ceremonies, presents the characters of Sidonia, Stela and Vanessa, which, in a kind of musical performance full of hyperbole and provocation, perfectly stage the multiple facets of the neurosis of the gadjo man with regard to Roma femininity.
The denunciation in Gadjo Dildo is evident: in a world dominated by the oppressive force of gadjo desire, Roma women break out in a revolutionary way from the prison that the gadjos are trying to impose. Sidonia, Stela and Vanesa not only stage the enigma, fantasy and racist soliloquy that weigh on their lives, but they enter into dialogue with them, face them and finally destroy them without compunction. Confronted by the ‘Gypsy Experience’ created and sought again and again, almost desperately, by those pathologically addicted to the distorted ideas of magic, madness and shamelessness that are supposedly characteristic of the ‘gypsy’ identity, and which materialize most powerfully in the image of the female Roma, Giuvlipen raises and highlights the lethal destruction caused by myth, caricature and the archaic racist romanticism. The music of Ion din Dorobanti and the costumes of Diana Bobina crown this cabaret show, which does not shrink from pointing out the crossroads at which the artists meet. On the one hand, an open criticism of the dominant system is assumed; on the other hand there is the need to question the expectations created by the Roma themselves about their mothers, sisters, daughters and companions. A spotlight is shone on the cultural blackmail used by the men of the community to mask the subjugation of women as one of the perverse forms in which internal patriarchy is expressed. In this process, Gadjo Dildo breaks down the false foundations of the heterosexual regime or the supposedly traditional forms of conjugal union, challenging the existing barriers within the Roma resistance, to enable Roma women and to provoke their definitive empowerment. Thus feminism, anti-racism, sexual dissidence and dramaturgy melt into one, resulting in what Claudia Ciobanu has called ‘The Vanguard of the Romani Revolution, a struggle – through art and activism – after centuries of oppression’.