A Creole Performance in Cluj
This Home is not for Sale
Roşia Montană is a mine city, the oldest locality with tradition in the exploitation of precious metals in Europe, having a millenary existence with permanent activity for centuries. It became famous after a Romanian-Canadian company, Roşia Montană Gold Corporation (RMGC), elaborated 18 years ago a mine project consisting in the opening of the largest gold exploitation on the surface with cyanide procedure in Europe. Therefore, not only shall the entire community be destroyed, but also a patrimony of over 2000 years.
The company completed all legal and illegal actions to start the project: purchasing the lands and houses of the inhabitants (to demolish them) and moving them in nearby areas, buying local authorities and blocking any other activity in the area (tourism, wood processing, etc.) by tagging the area as ”monoindustrial“. A large part of the population accepted, for a decent amount, to sell their identity and see it drown in cyanide. However, several families and individuals could not be bought by the company’s offers or threats, becoming an obstacle for the project and a fortress for defending the right to a healthy life and a historical and cultural heritage of an entire country.
The company, allied with many romanian politicians, plans to create a law to force people still living in Rosia Montana to move out, thus handing over their houses, memories, traditions and everything else to an entity searching only for the immediate economic profit.
The drama of hundreds of innocents being forced to leave their homes: an old man is forced to give up his childhood to a giant company who shall destroy it, leaving a dirty and vanished history. Others, blinded by gold, wander into the ex mines and die there, leaving orphans at home. Some move their dead ones from the cemetery in fear of exploitation and their bones end up on the roads, while some come back just so they do not die on foreign lands. Many, unable to adapt to these crucial changes, have committed suicide.
The „We save Roşia Montană” campaign was initially organized by people in Roşia Montană fighting for their rights. The manifest extended quickly and globally, with thousands of activists showing their support for those in Roşia and indignation towards their leaders who do not represent them anymore, being ready to sell them. The rebellion attached signs and boards saying: “This Home is NOT for sale”.
Involving youth in this attempt to traditions shows the importance they grant to problems related to our identity as a nation. This campaign has crushed the stereotype according to which we would be superficial, investing in real values, like tradition and heritage, which we are still fighting for today.
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The Crew
Raluca Lupan
Raluca Lupan s-a născut în aprilie 1984, la Turda. A absolvit Facultatea de Teatru și Televiziune Cluj-Napoca, secția Arta Actorului, în anul 2009. A avut o importantă colaborare cu Opera Națională Română din Cluj-Napoca sub îndrumarea regizorului Alexander Hausvater (spectacolul Nabucco ‘12), iar în prezent activează în sfera teatrului independent în cadrul companiei de teatru și film Create.Act.Enjoy. De asemenea, este doctorandă a Facultății de Teatru și Televiziune, urmând numeroase workshop-uri și participând la festivaluri internaționale, în scopul cercetării academice, fiind totodată asistent universitar al aceleiași facultăți. Este pasionată de teatru-dans, performance și contact-improvisation. În ceea ce privește sfera personală, ar fi nedrept să uităm faptul că Raluca Lupan adoră culoarea verde, dar paradoxal nu suportă mărarul. E hipnotizată de actorul Colin Firth și are un umor fin (dar, atenție, negru!).
Harry Wilson
I am a performance maker and researcher based in Glasgow. I graduated from Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow in 2008 and completed a masters by research on devised theatre in 2011. I am interested in using contemporary performance strategies of developing and composing work; combining movement and images with performative text through a devising process. I approach work collaboratively and focus on developing material from a central question or thematic starting point and subsequently accumulating material via associative rather than narrative links. I have shown work at venues and festivals in the UK such as the Arches, Buzzcut Festival, Battersea Arts Centre, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Forest Fringe and Summerhall. I have also worked as a tutor on the Contemporary Performance Practice course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and for Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow. In October 2014, I started an AHRC funded practice-as-research PhD between the University of Glasgow and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, which explores the relationships between performance and photography.
Blanca Teia Doba
Dan-Ştefan Pughineanu
I’m 20 and I am a first year student at the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where I study Acting. I enjoy the plays of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller,to name a few, I am more inclined to Physical theatre and Pantomime and most of all I love making people laugh. Since i was about 16 I started to act in a small group in my home town. As time passed, I realised that this is what i want to do with my life. During the 3 years i spent with the group, I have been fortunate enough to compete, as an actor, in the Ideo Ideis 7, in 2012, ”a national young theatre festival” that is very well known in Romania. Another festival that I competed in was ”Stage”, also in 2012, right here, in Cluj. After i got into college, I got to play in ”Tea time Europe”, a performance directed by Giorgos Zamboulakis.
Alexandru Tunsu Victor
Specialisation: Acting. I like Super-Heroes, pizza, skateboarding and I’m really intrested in Dance Theatre and Contact Improvisation.
Boda Norbert
I am currently studying acting in the first year of college. I studied music in high school and my main instrument was the guitar, but sadly I am not a talented singer. I am intrigued by the theatre of the absurd like Ionesco, Beckett and other contemporary playwrights. I like rapping, dancing to electronic music, writing (often weird) poetry and rap and improvising. I have a passion for movies, I filmed and edited a lot of material and one of my dreams is becoming a film director like Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodóvar or many others. I participated in many festivals as an actor before college. I wrote and directed a play in high school. As a student me and my fellow classmates worked with director Giorgos Zamboulakis for a performance act. I consider myself “Smart enough to feel stupid”.
Lorena Copil
I’m 21 and I have one more year to finish with my BA degree in Theatre Criticism and Cultural Journalism. I love people and I love to make them laugh, to make them feel content and peaceful. I’m enormously interested in puppetry and I still believe in theatre and its power to change our perspectives regarding the world around us, its power to open our minds and hearts, to make us human. I think theatre its magic and I want to embrace it.