The idea for the piece Gilǎ: El Exilio interior hecho Poema [The Interior Exile Turned into Poetry] arises from a request that, to celebrate the milestone of the 50th anniversary of the revolutionary 1970s Andalusian company Teatro Lebrijano, the Juan Bernabé Cultural Association from the flamenco city of Lebrija should join forces with the art historian, theatre director, scenographer, producer and writer Miguel Ángel Vargas and the great flamenco singer/cantaor José Valencia. Together they begin to shape the dream: to rescue the stories and feelings that exist in the broad and exuberant spirit of contemporary Roma poetry.

A Wedding in Auschwitz, by the philosopher, journalist and poet Rajko Đurić, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature, will become the first stage representation of the thread of a broken story, in which memory, dream, madness, joy and death combine, in a journey through the life and death of a writer painfully confined in the horrible concentration camp of Auschwitz. The word ‘Roma’ will not be uttered at any time, but the audience will intuit the Roma presence through a paradoxical absence that reveals the way in which death and life, in its harshness, disrupt the fragile construction of identity. However, the poems of Bajram Haliti, Nadia Hava Robbins, Jose Heredia Maya, Helios Fernández or Isaac Motos float with dignity over the stage set of stones, gravel and barbed-wire fence and the view opens generously to a dusty table and an old typewriter. This accompanies a certain way of experiencing tragedy from the Romipen, without needing to mention it, since it was because of their identity that the Nazis annihilated so many of our ancestors. José Valencia masterfully deciphers the notes through the main flamenco styles, malagueñas, seguiriyas, bulerías and soleás, playing with the rules and limits of the Andalusian Cante Gitano and daring to sing even in Romanes, accompanied by Juan Requena (guitar), Daniel Suárez (percussion) and Bat’or Hangonyi (cello).