We are the Roma!: One Thousand Years of Discrimination

“When Brazilian Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil invited Célio Turino to develop a programme to democratise access to culture, no one could have imagined the extraordinary initiatives that today cross Brazil from one extreme to the other: from semi-arid sertão to the sea, from Amazônia to the fertile lowlands of the South. The Ponto de Cultura programme has provided instruments for the multiple voices of a diverse nation to find expression in music, literature, petry… Turino’s book is a map of living Brazilian Popular Culture, disseminated to every corner of a nation that is finally seeking to be a country for everyone.” -Emir Sader

Is violent self-defense ethical? In the history of colonialism, racism, sexism, capitalism, there has long been a dividing line between bodies “worthy of defending” and those who who have been disarmed and rendered defenseless. That those subject to the most violence-the enslaved, the colonized, the oppressed-have been forcibly made defenseless raises, for any movement of liberation, a question: Can violence be used in the interests of self-defense?

Philosopher Elsa Dorlin looks across the global history of the left to trace the politics, philosophy, and ethics of self-defense. With a historical gaze that captures slave revolts, British suffragists’ training in jujitsu, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to the Black Panther Party, queer neighborhood patrols, and Black Lives Matter, Dorlin discovers a “martial ethics of the self”: a practice in which violent self-defense is the only means for the oppressed to ensure survival and to build a livable future.

Translated from the French by Kieran Aarons.

Video documentation of an online conversation with artist Keith Khan, in June 2020. This conversation followed an online screening of Khan’s film ‘Z’ as part of our LADA Screens programme. Joseph Morgan Schofield (LADA) caught up with Keith remotely for a discussion considering ideas of faith, devotion, eroticism and ecstasy in relation to Z.

This e-journal edition from performingborders gathers artists and practitioners exploring how their work crosses borders—territorial, cultural, political, and personal. Rooted in connection, resistance, and shared struggles, these contributions reimagine collaboration and solidarity across time and space. With a foreword by their long-time collaborator Diana Damian Martin, this collection is a tapestry of methodologies and practices grounded in survival and creative resistance.

“Sadly, as people of color we experience discrimination everyday. It’s exhausting. And when it happens, we often question ourselves, thinking: Did that just happen? Am I being too sensitive? And when we can identify that it is discrimination and speak to it, we’re often questioned and others often don’t believe us or brush us off, calling us too sensitive or angry. The burden falls on us to prove that we are being discriminated against. This book is here for you to take detailed logs of your everyday aggressions so that you can show off your receipts–proof.” Aram Han Sifuentes

Designed and illustrated by Ishita Dharap.

Contemporary Theatre Review, Volume 33, Issue 3 (2023)

Essential Work : Eastern European Immigrants and Models of Participation, Bojana Janković

This article investigates the relationship between a marginalised community of essential workers and dominant models of participation.

Article from Consented Issue 9 : Environment

This article presents the research and performance practice behind ‘The Performing Solidarity Project’.

Based on real events, The Island Nation is a visceral, revelatory new play by Christine Bacon, artistic director of the pioneering human rights theatre company ice&fire.

We need to talk about racial injustice in a different way: one that builds on the revolutionary ideas of the past and forges new connections.

In this incisive, radical and practical essay, Emma Dabiri – acclaimed author of Don’t Touch My Hair – draws on years of research and personal experience to challenge us to create meaningful, lasting change.

On Filipina labour and amateur performance in Hong Kong.

Performance Research On Amateurs pg 81-87, Volume 25. No 1 January/ February 2020.