This work is part of the performingborders 2021 commission Spells for a border town (retrocedare) by Diana Damian Martin.
Audio in English, short transcript in Romanian, Romani, and English below.
ROMANIAN/ROMANI:
Vrajă împotriva fașciștilor
Mihaela Drăgan
Împotriva sistemelor politice de dreapta și a dictatorilor din toată lumea, Roma Futurism propune tehno-blesteme ca acesta:
Fie ca tu [aici se spune numele persoanei, de exemplu: Trump, Salvini, Orban, etc.] să devii sărac pentru tot restul vieții tale!
Virusul nostru „Mâncătorul de bănci” garantează că îți devorăm toți banii!
Spiritul Internetului ne ajută să îți rupem gâtul, brațele, picioarele, gura ta blestemată, așa încât să nu îți mai auzim niciodată cuvintele pline de ură împotriva noastră!
Cyber-suroritatea noastră garantează că cei ca tine o să dispară
Că vei cheltui banii furați de la noi pentru sicrie funerare
Ca în sfârșit o să avem pace pentru noi și pentru toți cei chinuiți de voi!
Carnea ta să se topească bucată cu bucată, oasele să îți cadă unul câte unul
Să te sufoci în propriul tău sânge „civilizat”, la care ții atât de mult!
Să fii infectat de mii de viruși din calculatorul Romacenului!
Fie ca mintea ta să rămână pentru totdeauna într-un întuneric non-tehnologic, în gaura neagră a cyber-atacului nostru!
Vom opri planurile tale malefice împotriva noastră și vom câștiga acces la datele tale!
Îți vom șterge intențiile rasiste și îți vom bloca acțiunile fasciste!
Fie ca tu [numele] să fii abandonat în deșerturi în care praful electrificat al haosului cibernetic te înfășoară în direcții de destinație aleatoare, în furtuni electromagnetice devastatoare, care te înghit!
Fie ca tu să fii anihilat de viitorul nostru post-uman, unde nu va fi loc pentru opresori ca tine!
Cunoștințele noastre tehno-magice ne vor face liderele acestei lumi.
Noi suntem Romele din viitor.
Vom fi multe.
Ne vom multiplica nu doar prin procreare, sarcină sau naștere.
Ne vom înmulți prin suroritatea noastră, prin tehno-vrăjitoria noastră și prin rezistență!
Viitorul ne aparține.
Viitorul ne aparține.
Viitorul ne aparține.
ENGLISH:
Spell against fascists:
Mihaela Drăgan
May you [insert here the name of the person, for example: Trump, Salvini, Orban, etc.] become poor for your rest of your life !
Might our Trojan-Banker grants that we devour all your money!
The Spirit of the Internet grants that I break your neck, your arms,
your legs, your dirty mouth so that I may not hear again your hate speech against us!
Our Cyber Sisterhood grants that you spend your sweet money for the coffin and pall
And that you prepare a funeral feast
So that I get peace for myself and my people!
Your flesh melts piece by piece, your bones fall one by one, may you suffocate in your “civilized” blood, may you be infected by thousands computer viruses.
May your mind remain forever in a non-technological darkness, in the black hole of the computing crushing.
We will stop your malefic plans against us, and gain access to your data.
We will delete your intentions, we will block your racist attitudes and disrupt your fascist actions!
May you be abandoned in deserts where the electrified dust of cybernetic chaos coils in directions of random destination in devastating electromagnetic storms against you!
May you [insert name] be annihilated by our post-human future where is no place for oppressors like you!
Our techno-mystical knowledge will make us the leaders of this world!
We are the Cyberwitches FROM THE FUTURE, Flushed out of time
We are the first representatives of this new generation.
We will destroy everything you care about
And build up a new world
Leaded by us Cyber Witches.
We are the symbol of a new era that will be called Rromacene.
You Gadje had your chance.
You couldn’t fail more.
You messed up the whole planet with your fucking Capitalocene, stupid white men!
But we were watching you for centuries! You didn’t even notice.
Now we know everything about you whereas you don’t know anything about us.
We studied your weaknesses.
And now we are going to fight you with your own arms.
THIS TIME IT’S OUR TURN!
Didn’t you realize that you have prepared the end of the world as you knew it?
But don’t worry! You won’t rule anymore!
BECAUSE THE FUTURE IS OURS!
THE FUTURE IS OURS!
THE FUTURE IS OURS!
This commission is a part of the performingborders 2021 programme. The full commission by Diana Damian Martin can be seen here: Spells for a border town (retrocedare).
Mihaela Drăgan is a multidisciplinary artist with an education in theatre who lives in Bucharest and works in several other countries. In 2014, she founds Giuvlipen Theatre Company, for which she is an actress and playwright, together with other Roma actresses. She also works in Berlin as an actress for Maxim Gorki Theatre, Heimathafen Neukölln, Theater Aufbau Kreuzberg. She is also a trainer at Theatre of the Oppressed, working with Roma women in Romania and has also worked with refugee girls in Germany.
She was one of the six finalists for The 2017 Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award from New York, an award which acknowledges the exceptional work of 20 theatre women around the world. In 2020 she is nominated again and she is the recipient of the Special Award of the League. In 2018, Drăgan was a resident artist in Hong Kong at Para Site Contemporary Art Centre where she was developing Roma Futurism – that lies at the intersection of Roma culture with technology and witchcraft. Her performance “Roma Futurism” has been showcased in art spaces as the Museum of Contemporary Art from Belgrade; at FutuRoma – collateral exhibition at Venice Biennale; at Critical Romani Studies conference at Central European University in Budapest and Romanian Cultural Institute in London. In the same year is acknowledged by PEN World Voices International Play Festival 2018 in New York as one of the ten most respected dramatists of the world.In 2019 is one of the playwrights selected for the acclaimed Royal Court Theatre International Summer Residency in London where she wrote a science fictional play about a future utopian society of Roma witches who control technology and fight neo-fascist politics in Europe. In 2021 she exhibits her first video installation ”Future is a safe place hidden in my braids” divided into 3 short films that depicts futuristic rituals for healing transgenerational trauma of Roma people and are projecting a safe future for the community.Mihaela-dragan.com
Diana Damian Martin is an artist and researcher, working at the intersection between writing, politics and performance. Her work concerns alternative critical epistemologies and feminist modes of exchange, interventionist and political performance and the ecological and representational poetics of migration, with a distinct focus on Eastern Europe.Recent collaborations include performing borders, The Albany, Dansehallerne, The Wellcome Collection and Tate Modern. She co-hosts The Department of Feminist Conversations and Something Other, and co-runs the Serbo-Romanian critical cooperative Critical Interruptions, artistic research committee Generative Constraints and is a core member of Migrants in Culture. Her recent publications include (states of)wake: Dedicating Performance and Critical Interruptions Vol 1: Steakhouse LIVE. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Performance Arts at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and once appeared in an issue of Private Eye, where her work was described as obscure, impenetrable and unclear. Twitter: @DianaADamian
Featured image credits: Diana Damian Martin