Athens International Conference “Theatre/Drama & Inclusive Education” Athens 21-22-23 March 2025
Hellenic Theatre/Drama & Education Network (TENet-Gr)
WORKING GROUP/DISCUSSION PANEL
Issues of Theatrical Representation of Otherness: The Case of Roma People
Yiannis Georgiou responding to panel questions coordinated by Christina Zoniou
My name is Yiannis Georgiou. I am a Greek Gypsy/Rom sociologist with a historical orientation, studying the social histories of the Rom communities in Greece and elsewhere. I am the last one among you who is related with theatre studies. Nevertheless, I am here as a performer-scenographer of my life, since I try to construct narratively myself- re-writing, re-selfing, re-telling the stories of my life and in this way changing the negative image of the Gypsy/Rom, giving a positive meaning!
1. What do theatre artists aim to represent when telling stories about Roma people?
I believe that in most cases they present Roma through the perspective of “otherness”- describing them as the ‘ultimate other’ and this is so because they are influenced by centuries of depicting Roma as aliens, strangers, people who do not belong, who live in their own culture and cultural universe, in a way attesting the Herderian concept of cultures which is characterized by social homogenization, ethnic consolidation and intercultural delimitation. Through iconology, iconography, literature and today through cinema and the media, such visualizations are passed down through the centuries and have prevailed.
Great theatrical plays and operas like Bizet’s Carmen or Rachmaninoff’s Aleko reproduce a recurrent motif, the eternal Gypsy figure and Gypsy life as an embodiment of “carefree, defiant, disruptive alternative to a Western culture. Gypsies apparently remain outside of historical record and historical time, outside of Western law, the Western nation state. All the Gypsies have, all they need, all they know is their own collectivity.
So these depictions, are misrepresentations, they portray the ‘imaginary’ Gypsies. On the contrary, according to historical sources Gypsies are not a foreign entity but they have been closely associated with the formation and development of European societies, already since the Middle Ages.
2. One critical aspect of such works is who is telling the story. Are Roma people merely subjects of other’s narratives or are they active participants in telling their own stories?
Definitely, the Rom/Gypsies are the silenced subjects – the unsung heroes and heroines- the subaltern for whom the renowned philosopher G.C. Spivak, asks: “Can the subaltern speak?”.
The narrators of such works such as theatrical projects are dominated by non-Rom, Gadje, who are sensitive towards Roms but in an essentializing way. The actual Roms are voiceless. As “Gypsies” move on the theatrical stage, they are bound to monolithical instantiations.
3. Theatre projects ‘about Roma’ often seek to address deeper questions surrounding identity, but this raises a pivotal concern; What does it truly mean to be Roma?
The answer is twofold:
on the one hand, classical theatre projects, ‘about Gypsies’ most of the times do seek to address deeper questions surrounding the identity and culture of the group represented by the play. What they actually do is that they focus on the “concept of fixity” regarding the representation of the identity of the Roms, which is the ideological construction of otherness according to Homi Bhabba. That is, they reproduce the idea that “Gypsies have always through the centuries been the same and that they do not change their character and identity as being primitive people”. But the lack the idea to find the hidden histories behind the stereotypical picturing of the Gypsies/Rom or to highlight the occasions where “the gypsy families presented as spectacle have made staging themselves a true professional expertise”, according to Αdele Sutre.
I could use a personal example. Last year in the summertime I was approached by the head of the Dramaturgy Department of the Greek National Opera, Mrs Sophia Kompotiati. She asked me to write an essay on the Gypsies, since the GNO, would present in November, Aleko, the popular one-act opera composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The play is based on Alexander Pushkin’s poem The Gypsies and narrates the tragic love story of Aleko, a Russian noble and Zemfira, a gypsy girl living in a camp. [https://www.nationalopera.gr/en/stavros-niarchos-hall/sn-opera/item/6571-aleko-bluebeard-s-castle]
My text with the title: From Puskhkin to Rachmnaninoff: Searching for the “true” Gypsies in the years of Imperial Russia, among other issues highlighted the hidden histories behind the famous opera. Namely the fact that the real Gypsies were not the essentialised ahistorical Gypsies of the play, but they were real human beings who played a fundamental role in the musical scene of Imperial Russia and influenced both Pushkin and Rachmaninoff alike. “The Gypsies in Russia had formed choirs (tsyganshcnina) some of which enjoyed international acclaim and significant economic gain. It should be noted that the history of these Gypsy choirs has been greatly misinterpreted or even silenced, and fell out of favor when the Soviet Union emerged. Nevertheless, they are a musical phenomenon inextricably linked with the socio-cultural history of the tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. At the same time, their tradition confirms the Gypsies’ enduring presence in the public space, which is evident even today in St. Petersburg”.
The effort to bring out this hidden side of the history of the Tsarist Gypsies, even textually, is celebrated. Let us imagine what the play would be like if it somehow included a vivid reminder to the audience of the Greek National Opera of these hidden stories of the Gypsies of Tsarist Russia…
Nowadays, when Roms present theatre projects, they tend to challenge the unenlightened stereotypes about them, the portrayal of themselves as “exotics” and the emphasis is on the unknown aspects of the Roms historical presence in Europe. Therefore either they focus on traumatic events like the Holocaust or on other situations their view is relational that is they embed the projects in historical reality and try to disrupt the dominant regimes of representation of the Roms/Gypsies stressing the historicality of the Roma/Gypsy communities.
Being a Rom/Gypsy is not again a fixed identity. Some people support this idea on the basis of a common origin, language and discrimination that Gypsies and Roms faced throughout their historical presence in Europe.
Personally, I see my Gypsy/Rom identity as a “migration through different social worlds and as the successive realization of a number of possible identities”. And as Hobbi Bhabba argues: “[I]dentity is never a priori, nor a finished product; it is only ever the problematic process of access to an image of totality.” Adele Sutre, contends that, “In the articulation of family, historical and geographical heritages, Gypsy identity is in perpetual reconstitution and thus unfolds between the sense of belonging to diverse communities and the diversity of self-assignments and external categorizations”. (Geopolitique des Tsiganes)
4. An essential consideration is for whom we create these plays. What emotions do we want to elicit from the audience? Should they feel guilty or pity for Roma people? Or do we want to engage them in a way that prompts curiosity, interest and deeper questioning? The challenge lies in striking a balance between showcasing the hardships Roma communities face and celebrating their strength and resilence.
Indeed, theatre makers want to convey great emotions in the audience, the passion of the Gypsies, their communal way of thinking, their innocence, intelligence, primordial way of behaving, their manner of conduct. Nevertheless they fail to bring forth the actual Roms/Gypsies and their lives in the real world. Instead the perpetuate racial stereotypes of “imaginary Gypsies”, taking them as the “True Gypsies”.
I comply with the view that the projects that the Roma themselves stage should not try to bring to the light exclusively the antigypsyism context, showing that Roma have always been victims. Instead to my mind, they should show that the Roms managed to overcome difficulties and make use of the opportunities given to develop themselves and carry on.
5. Should we depict Roma as victims of discrimination and social exclusion? While acknowledging the harsh realities of discrimination is important, there is a growing call to empower Roma individuals, especially the youth to embrace their identity with pride. Theatre can serve as a platform for young Roma people to celebrate their “romanity” – their Roma identity and counteract the narrative of victimhood.
To keep on depicting Roma as victims of discrimination is a recurrent narrative in scholarly works about Roma. Such a practice does not empower Roma people themselves but makes them feel as pathetic subjects.
Without denying the fact that Rom/Gypsies have been marginalized, discriminated or persecuted, it is of outmost importance to historicize such events towards the Rom/community, otherwise we tend to generalize. It is more fruitful “to probe rather the variety of Romani experience in specific situations rather than stressing its universal nature”.
On the contrary, Gypsy societies have never been isolated from the rest of the world and their external representations, as well as the way they presented themselves, are the fruit of centuries of contacts, exchanges and encounters. It is what the historian Henriette Asseo called a "contact culture", characterized by actual encounters, careful observation and the projection of an aesthetic sophistication.
We need to embrace Rom as agents as well, not exclusively as victims, having in mind what the famous social historian E.P. Thompson says about the dialectic of the agency and conditioning.
According to Ethel Brooks and Jane Collins, we need to re-historicize our European past that includes Roms/Gypsies/Travellers, excavating in this way historical narratives that include the presence of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller subjects. (Scenography Matters: Performing Romani identities as Strategy and Critique in Scenography Expanded),