The Independent Theatre Hungary has been drawing attention to the values, stories and heroes of Roma theatre for 15 years. This year, the company organised the international theatre meeting for the 5th time, 5–9 May, 2022, in the RS9 Theatre. During the festival’s five years, the audience saw 29 performances. The festival’s main goal is to present authentic stories written by Roma authors which places Roma culture’s values in the spotlight. „We work to draw attention to the values of Roma dramas and storytelling, to Roma communities’ situations by putting value-driven people’s stories and extraordinary challenges in the spotlight through presenting contemporary European plays.” – Rodrigó Balogh, art director On the 5 th of May, the Independent Theatre Hungary, celebrating its 15 th anniversary, presented the theatrical collection called Roma Heroes Digital Collection of European Roma Theatre and Drama. The collection presents the values, the past and the present, the artists and the ...

In our lives we meet a lot of people who have a significant influence on us.  We can call them heroes or role models, but the point is that they impact our lives and smooth the way for us. I consider myself lucky. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been surrounded by amazing people in an atmosphere where I was encouraged to dream big. My parents always supported me, my mum wanted me to graduate and get a decent job so that I could provide for my family. Words cannot express how much they mean to me.  Beside my parents, my mentor, who has become a good friend by now, helped me find my path. My hero story is about him. Music has always intrigued me, so when I started going to a camp as a teenager, I met a lot of exceptionally talented people there. One of the music mentors in the camp was Máté Kovács whom I’ve always admired for his talent. We practiced a lot and he wanted us to make progress individually, too. We made music together, we chose and orchestrated the songs together, h...

  What’s the first thing that comes to our mind when we talk about heroes? Why do we consider someone a hero? Discipline wouldn’t come to most people’s mind first. This story shows, though, how expectations full of love and intentional parenting make heroes out of our parents. To introduce my heroes, I must go back to my childhood…and I am lucky enough to think of my mum and dad as heroes. I was not a good kid at all. I did a lot of mischief, and I was also lazy and self-righteous. Music was always important in my family. My dad is still the organist in our local church. My parents soon noticed my musical talent when I was a child, and they wanted me to improve it. Beside music, improving my school records became my other priority. My parents divided the tasks between them: my dad would assist my musical studies, and my mum would help me better my grades. I found maths extremely difficult, and my mum sacrificed her whole summer to tutor me. Each day she worked with endless pa...

  What’s your biggest dream, and what would you do to achieve it? Life often doesn’t turn out how we planned. What do you do then? Do you face the difficulties, or do you give up? The story of my hero gets a special place in my heart because it has one main character but two heroes. Where shall I start? Yes, I would like to tell you about my sister. A true perfectionist. She’d had this personality trait already back then when she started university but beginning her studies didn’t go smoothly. Her first thing to do was to apply for a dorm room, because getting to school would have been a true struggle every single day by train, bus and the local bus service. This would have meant six hours of commuting each day. She obviously tried her best to get a place in the dormitory. The story would end here if reality would be like a fairy tale. But we all know that it is not always like that. So, she kept on trying without success for months, she didn’t get a room, meanwhile she would w...

Igor Krukinov is the director of the Romance Theater, and Nikola Kondenko and Natalia Zolotarjova are the actors in the theater. For them theater means life and home. A place where they can talk freely about their culture, problems and development process. What they all have in common is that they developed a love of theater from an early age. They also talk about their favorite roles, the way the Roma theater works, the values ​​and experiences they have experienced together and their future plans. It becomes clear what and why they consider important in Roma theater and what they want to convey to the audience through their production.

  The role model of Zsolt, who grew up in Sepsiszentgyörgy, is the theater company of László Bocsárdi. The company’s epoch-making performances and intimate atmosphere immediately captivated the boy preparing for an acting career. “ I looked up to these actors like gods.”- he says nostalgically. He recounts that after one of the performances, he took courage and talked to them. That's when his dream to be an actor in the Tamási Áron Theater was born. He talks about his experiences in Marosvásárhely at Színművészeti Egyetem and how he got into the thick of alternative theater life in Budapest.  Finally, he talks about her community work, experiences and its aftermath at the Roma settlement in Őrkö.

  Among other things, Slavisa Markovic, who also talks about the development of his passion for theater, seeks answers to these questions. He said his attachment to the theater began as a child in the AG puppet theater, where he was sent by one of his teachers. Identity and interaction with the environment is one of the central themes in his work. In this regard, we can learn more about his form-breaking ideas and why it is important to look at stories from as many perspectives as possible.

  In Nebojsa Markovic’s life, storytelling played a huge role as a community-building force. According to him, storytelling already had been a performative act with expressive mimicry and by bringing the whole being of the narrator into the story. This is how Nebojsa's love of theater developed.  The little boy started writing sociodramas. He was disturbed by the inability of other people to form an identity-independent judgment in his direction. He talks about why he was disturbed at school by the compulsion of her Roma peers to comply and when the value of acceptance regardless of origin developed in his life. We can find out what matters most to him in theater and why he doesn’t have a role model.

Does the origin determine future opportunities? What can be done for self-fulfillment? Martha Balážová wanted to be a singer from an early age. Through dedication and perseverance, she was able to achieve her dream. She sincerely talks about how many opportunities have opened up for her in a segregated Moravian territory thanks to her parents conscious decision. She also talks about what she considers important in today’s theatrical life.

Frantisek Balog is the only Roma actor in Slovakia so he has a great responsibility to represent Roma culture. The actor of the Košice State Theater talks about his acting career, his aims, his years in an orphanage and a Roma conservatory. We can find out why he couldn’t fully integrate into the Roma conservatory’s community. He mentions the start of his interest in Roma culture. It also becomes clear why the promotion of Roma theater is so important to him.