NYÁRI OSZKÁR (BUDAPEST)
Mari Jászai Award-winning actor; head of the Karaván Theatre and Arts Foundation
He has dedicated a significant part of his career to creating opportunities for learning, creativity and empowerment through art for Roma and non-Roma, disadvantaged children and young people. His work is guided by the belief that the development of talent should not be limited by poverty, origin or social exclusion.
The Karaván Theatre and Arts Foundation began its operations in 2000 as an actor training studio. Its two main areas are Roma theatre creative work and performing arts talent development. It operates training in Budapest and Kaposvár, where Roma and other disadvantaged young people participate in regular professional sessions, and after appropriate preparation, they can gain experience in theatre and film productions. Over the past two and a half decades, more than five hundred children have joined the talent development program. The Karaván Theatre produces performances for all ages, has created co-productions with numerous domestic theatres, and regularly travels to small settlements far from Budapest, where disadvantaged, mainly Roma children, can see its productions for free. Its performances and social projects take action against anti-Gypsy prejudices, discrimination and hatred, while presenting Roma identity and culture in a positive, value-creating way.
Karaván offers not only training, but also a safe community and long-term career opportunities. Many of its former students have completed higher education or started careers in the arts. In 2018, the organization received the Bonis Bona – Excellent Talent Development Organization Award and the Nationality Award. Oszkár Nyári's work proves that the creative collaboration of Roma and non-Roma youth can simultaneously create artistic quality and social change.
For me, the most important thing in my job is – the candidate wrote
I established the Karaván Theatre and Arts Foundation 26 years ago with the aim of providing opportunities for young people of Roma origin interested in theatre and acting. But disadvantaged, non-Roma children have also joined us almost from the beginning. Thus, the fundamental values of the Karaván Theatre and its students and colleagues include mutual acceptance, support, and openness to all kinds of differences. Although I always have the question of what and who we have the right to say that anything or anyone is different. In the performances of the Karaván Theatre, students and graduate actors play together. Our choices of plays always revolve around socially important issues. As a Roma nationality theatre, it is our duty to preserve our identity and to cultivate Roma culture. We did not talk about the fact of the Roma Holocaust for a long time. It is our duty to keep the memory of it in our consciousness and to talk about it on a social level, which we also do with our theatrical performances. It was an honor for me to meet Éva Fahidi, and for her to give an interview to our foundation, in which she recalled her memories of the gypsy family camp in Auschwitz. Exclusion and social discrimination are still tragically present today. The fight against these has become my mission, which I can represent through my studied profession, acting, and the journey I have taken with the Karaván Theater.
References
Karaván Theatre and Arts Foundation Roma National Theatre
Karaván Theater