{"id":1300,"date":"2014-02-04T14:33:11","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T14:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2016-09-26T12:19:26","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T12:19:26","slug":"in-teatrul-comunitar-nu-poti-sa-o-tii-langa-in-lumea-ta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/2014\/02\/04\/in-teatrul-comunitar-nu-poti-sa-o-tii-langa-in-lumea-ta\/","title":{"rendered":"In community theater, \u201cyou can\u2019t just lock yourself up in your own little world\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview with <\/i><\/b>Andrei Sever B\u00e2rzan, Andreea E\u0219anu and Alice Monica Marinescu<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not ashamed to work. We all have the right to work to make ends meet. I wash toilets and I also teach. I\u2019m working, not loitering! And besides, I like working with children. I\u2019ve always loved them.\u201d In 2007, the story of Rodica Sandu \u2013 a cleaning lady at Telec school in Bicazu Ardelean \u2013 was hyped up by the media, who emphasized the degradation of the education system. Rodica Sandu began teaching English at the school where half the teaching hours were available after she passed the exam and got a 7 (out of 10), which allowed her to be a substitute teacher. In 2009, Bogdan Georgescu (theater director and playwright), together with Andreea E\u0219anu (actress), began documenting this story and extended the debate to encompass the idea of non-differentiated education, a type of education which downplays acquired social roles and relates to actual community needs. The performance I Am Special<\/b> was part of the project of active art for community education Turneu la \u021bar\u0103 (On Tour in the Countryside)[1]<\/b><\/a><\/b>, a project with an important socio-cultural stake: the rehabilitation of community cultural centers \u2013 almost entirely abandoned after 1989 \u2013 with an emphasis on their unifying role as environments of social cohesion, participative education and artistic exchange to the benefit of communities which are nowadays removed from the circuit of \u201chigh culture.\u201d Turneu la \u021bar\u0103 <\/b>debated the significance of certain areas of solidarity which might reconfigure the living culture of contemporary communities which are increasingly made vulnerable by the lack of access to education. Throughout July and August 2009, the performance I Am Special <\/b>toured the countryside as part of the project of cultural reinstatement of the community centers \u2013 a reinstatement of the right to self-representation \u2013 and was staged at the community centers in Limanu (Constan\u021ba County), <\/i>S\u0103sarm, Chiuza (Bistri\u0163a-N\u0103s\u0103ud County), I.L. Caragiale (D\u00e2mbovi\u0163a County), P\u0103u\u0219e\u0219ti M\u0103gla\u0219i (V\u00e2lcea County).<\/i> On September 30th<\/sup> 2009, there was a presentation of Turneu la \u021bar\u0103<\/b> at the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, accompanied by a proposal to transform the community cultural centers into community centers for creative education and active art (Mihaela Michailov).<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

\"Turneu<\/a>

Turneu la \u021bar\u0103. Photo: Bogdan Paraschiv<\/p><\/div>\n

[\u2026]<\/p>\n

What was relevant for you in the story of the English teacher who stays on as a cleaning lady? I find that the whole story questions the power relations in the education system and the status of the one who has the right to teach only because he is perceived as such. It also uncovers the horizontality of knowledge and the ability to discover new ways and contexts in which an exchange of knowledge can take place.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Andreea E<\/b>\u0219<\/b>anu: <\/b>When I first went to Bicazu Ardelean, I was convinced it was a systemic issue and that we\u2019ll be dealing precisely with that: the Ministry isn\u2019t doing anything, there are no teachers available, there\u2019s no opportunity for development in rural areas etc., but after doing research, I was embittered by the discrimination to which the teacher was subjected by the people around her. It turns out they didn\u2019t have a problem with her being a teacher and a cleaning lady, they just had a problem with her being a cleaning lady, period. If she were to decide one day to sell notebooks, they wouldn\u2019t have bought any because she was a cleaning lady. I was completely put off by this aspect of the story. In the performance, all the things I saw her go through built up in me. Her family kept to themselves \u2013 in the countryside, I expected to see everyone talking to everyone else. While I was doing research, I interviewed her, the school principal and other school teachers and I felt very strongly the marginalization of her family and the removal of the \u201cshame generator.\u201d The principal asked us not to stage the play there because it would bring the issue back in the public eye and it wouldn\u2019t be OK to have someone write about the cleaning lady yet again. No mention whatsoever of the English teacher who is a part-time cleaning lady, only of the cleaning lady who happens to be teaching English.<\/p>\n

Andrei Sever B\u00e2rzan: <\/b>I was very much interested in the social implications of the project \u2013 the rehabilitation of the cultural centers, and I was also very preoccupied with the social education the young people were receiving. Not in the sense that I was coming to tell them what was good and bad about their education, but I Am Special <\/b>gave me the possibility to talk about things from an educational and cultural perspective.<\/p>\n

Alice Monica Marinescu<\/b>: I was also interested in the human story and in the way people positioned themselves, but also in the audience, because we performed in places where people had never seen a theater play before. I was curious to see how they would react, how they would get involved, and I realized how much damage the media can do when it presents only one side of the story without any nuances. You keep thinking that you, as an artist, could even the score. You could recontextualize things and offer another side to the story. The effects were very perverse: during the post-performance discussions, people seemed to hold the teacher in very high regard, but the media had done so much initial damage.<\/p>\n

Andreea E<\/b>\u0219anu<\/b>: <\/b>Monica mentions something very important. During the discussions, people showed their appreciation for the teacher.<\/p>\n

\"Turneu<\/a>

Turneu la \u021bar\u0103. Photo: Bogdan Paraschiv.<\/p><\/div>\n

[\u2026]<\/p>\n

Interview conducted by Mihaela Michailov<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n

[1]<\/a> Project team made up of: Andrei Sever B\u00e2rzan, Andreea E\u0219anu, Bogdan Georgescu, Alice Monica Marinescu, S\u00e2nziana Nicola; research: Vlad Georgescu, Bogdan Paraschiv.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interview with Andrei Sever B\u00e2rzan, Andreea E\u0219anu and Alice Monica Marinescu \u201cI\u2019m not ashamed to work. We all have the right to work to make ends meet. I wash toilets and I also teach. I\u2019m working, not loitering! And besides, I like working with children. I\u2019ve always loved them.\u201d In 2007, the story of Rodica Sandu \u2013 a cleaning lady at Telec school in Bicazu Ardelean \u2013 was hyped up by the media, who emphasized the degradation of the education system. Rodica Sandu began teaching English at the school where half the teaching hours were available after she passed the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[95],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3433,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions\/3433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}