Interview with Mihaela Dragan - Roma actress from Romania

Being close to Romanian National Day, I thought about offering you a different view regarding the country but also I want to show you a model, a woman that fights for her gender right and for Roma all over the world, she is an example of power and hard work and she managed to take part in creating Giuvlipen, the first Roma theatre company.

I also tried to find out how Mihaela Draga feels about Romania and also which are her wishes regarding changes in the Romanian society.

You have here a short interview, I really hope it will make a difference.

Who was Mihaela Dragan as a little girl? Which is the memory that you feel the closest to your soul from your childhood?

I grew up in the country side, with my grandparents. Our home was in the gispsy quarter, I mean in the suburban area where Roma were living. My parents were working in the city, they did not had time to nurture me and my sisters.

The only image that I have when I think about “home” is my grandparents house, the place where I stayed until I went to highschool. Even now when I am dreaming, I can only see that house in my dreams.

Every situation from my dreams is taking place in the rooms of the house that I nurtured in, I remember all the details from the room: not so much furniture, coloured carpets on the wall, big frames with black and white pictures from the youth of my grandparents or from the time I was in the 1^st grade.

The blue trough in which my grandmother was doing laundry a few times per week until my mother bought a washing machine. But it was too late because she already got sick with rheumatism from keeping her hands into cold water for a long time.

What do I remember? The napkins filled with flower embroidery which my grandfather brought us Sunday mornings after he was finishing singing at some wedding.

There are a lot of images that I still keep vivid in my memory. My entire childhood from my grandparents house is my golden age which I happily remember.

 What made you choose theatre and later activism through theatre?

I was an “actress” since I was a kid. Intoning poems, singing and loving to have audience. I was performing small shows for family and friends. When I was in the hospital at the age of 6 , every night I was having a show in the hospital room which I was sharing with my mother and some other women. I was putting the sheet as a dress, the bed was the stage that I stepped into and the show was starting: I was imitating all my favourite singers, everyone was laughing and I was feeling satisfied , making people feel good. So, I guess later was normal to choose theatre. Then it become necessary to do theatre about Roma identity. Roma theatre almost did not existed, and I thought that it is the time to contribute for this. This is how I started Giuvlipen, o feminist theatre company. Togheter with some other Roma actresses, we wanted to revolutionize Roma art. I think we did it somehow. People remembered us and we earned our own spot on the local independent art stage but not only local. Giuvlipen shows are playing even in foreign countries. If someone wants us to play, we are happy that there is interest for the art made by roma women. But we do not consider that we do activism through theatre. I think that art and activism are two different things that use different mecanisms. Our shows have strong messages about the society we live in and their goal is to change prejudices but our plays are not instruments in the purpose of activism. The goal is to create real art, not activist art or ong-istic art, which is completely different: our messages are direct, subjects are taken from clichés. What we do it is experimental and even more complex, without the arrogance to think that we save the world with a theatre show. We just make it cooler, that is it.

Mihaela Dragan is very active in the online, you are an actress, activist, you even sing rap music, how do you manage to do everything?

Do you think I am active in the online? What to see how I am offline, I am incredibly busy. Anyway, I am trying to post as little as I can in online, I think this addiction regarding social medias is becoming like an illness for all of us.

About the acitivism, I told you, I do not want to stop at doing activist art or “artivism”, but when I am not in the rehearsal room, many times I am at some protests or you can find me writing articols regarding antidiscrimination or I hold workshops, speeches regarding the topic. As long as the world is not a safe place for us, roma, for us, women, I can not accept it, I have to do something.

It is hard to do everything if you think about time, I am doing a lot of stuff in the same time, being on the run it became my natural way of being, but I am not complaining. In general, I have the obsession that I do not have enough time, that I am at my 30s and I have to do as much as I can in my carreer. I don’t know if I succeed, sometimes I am conserving my energy for something that is more important, some other times I feel that I am superficial in what I  am doing because of the limited time and I get mad on myself when I realize it. What I am trying to do is working with professionalism in everything I do , I think that we really don’t have enough professionals and serious people. And I really like what I do a lot, I don’t want to do things by half, I jump all in.

 This year you have been nominated for League of Professional Theatre Woman Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award, can you tell me more about the award? I only know that you are nominated along with 20 other women all over the world, and that the gala will be held in New York.

It is an award that is given for exceptional work of a woman in theatre field. I feel a great honour to be nominated, as you can tell. I never thought that my work is “exceptional”, I am flattered that League of Professional Women in Theatre from New York says this about me. You know how it is, you work for something with passion, you don’t think that someone will give you an award for this. It is an award for which are nominated 20 women all over the world, with big and important carreers in theatre, having local and international recognition: actresses, scenarists, directors… I think I am the youngest, so the honour it is even higher. The award is given once in 3 years in New York. It doesn’t matter if I win, I already feel like a winner for being there in the same place with a lot of extraordinary women.

 Now i would like to change the course of the discussion a little keeping in mind that the interview will be posted close to the Romanian National Day ( 1st of December), i wanted to ask you what do you love about Romania and what would you change ?

The only thing that connects me to Romania, beside family and Friends, is the language. It is my only attachement for this country and my only connection that I fell I have with it. I am an actress and I use words a lot, I use a lot of my time to find their hidden meanings. Unfortunately, I am not a romani speaker, so I feel that Romanian language is the one that belongs to me and the one with whom I identify with. Probably this can be called love.

What I would change in Romania? That bar that puts us in the top of the most intolerant and discriminating countries. And what I wish from Romania, is to finally create a theatre for roma minority, just the way that every other minority on Romanian territory has.

What is your "Happy Birthday" for Romania having in consideration what you do and who you are?

I would say happy birthday Romania without racism, sexism and homofobism. I would say happy birthday for Romania , a country in which her citizen should respect the diversity of others and without breaching right to life of the other. One Romania that can be for everybody in an equal manner, in which everyone should have the same rights and privileges, but of course this is naïve… We are far from all of this, unfortunately.

Bogdan  Burdusel