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Babel of Refugees
Nowadays the inhabitants of Babel are us, a new generation of globalized young people who try to understand each other, even though we come from different places and have different customs.
09/13/09
By Maribel Rodriguez Perez*/ Seinforma Canada Correspondent
Amsterdam.- Every summer in Amsterdam the International Theatre Festival, also known as the “Het IJ Festival”, is celebrated. The last time I had the chance of interviewing one of the youngest artistic directors of the festival, Giselle Vegter; Giselle, with Dutch nationality but a citizen of the world by choice, participated with a play which caught everyone’s attention.
Her play is on that part of society we know as refugees. With the dramaturgy of Fenneke Wekker and the production of Kwinten Vissers, Giselle expressed her opinion about what it means to be a refugee with a play called Babel, with the participation of only two actors.
After having done an intense selection which lasted over a year, Giselle chose an actor from Iraq and a Dutch actress, who had as a role the representation of an Iraqi refugee and an Immigration officer in Holland respectively. Babel is the conversation between these two characters.
During the performance, Giselle emphasized the question “How can we evaluate somebody who wants to live here in Holland?” Giselle answered to the audience, “In Europe we are in the position of choosing if an immigrant can stay or not; I find this to be very unfair. I also understand that for the governments it is very difficult to find an answer or a solution. With Babel I want to pay attention to the questions that exist about this argument.”
Giselle, besides being an art director, has worked as a volunteer with fugitives, to whom she could learn to relate, listen to their experiences and get to know them deeper. Eventually she became really interested in the life of the young Iraqi she used as main character in her play.
It is interesting to see that for Giselle the most important thing in her representation is the invitation to people to learn to live together, to coexist with one another. “We meet up with the rest and it is here when we learn to be with them, when we get to know the others.” says Giselle.
When the performance was over we had the following dialogue:
Seinforma: Giselle, why did you choose the name Babel for your play?
Giselle Vegter: “The name Babel has a multicultural meaning, for me Babel is a way in which the people in this world can express; besides Babel is the story of a city from whence the inhabitants moved away because they had begun speaking different languages and could not understand each other. For me it is a word that stands for those moments in which we cannot understand each other because we come from different cultures o because we live in different ways.”
Seinforma: Another argument that was in question in the representation was that one of the dilemma; the truth is that in different European countries the refugees or war fugitives are a dilemma. Giselle, does the dilemma of the refugees exist or not? What is your opinion in this respect?
Giselle Vegter: “We, Europeans, are a dilemma, because we as Europeans have to provide assurance not only to the refugees that arrive to our countries, but to the entire population, and many times this becomes our weak point. When big cultural differences exist or when we find out that people come to our countries because they need freedom, because they are escaping from war or because they are looking for safer conditions, sometimes our position is not the best. This is why many times we ought to accept sadly that we still do not have the necessary means and that many times we cannot offer wellbeing and assure a good stay in our countries; therefore many European countries cannot accept refugees, o in many other cases the people that seek shelter have to wait a very long time, even more than a year, to receive an answer.”
Seinforma: Giselle, you have chosen the theatrical audience as the main receivers of your idea, of your intention not only as an art director, but as a human being and of your devotion for sympathy. Where do you get your inspiration from?
Giselle Vegter: “We could say my motivation comes from getting to know each other, to understand each other, from not limiting ourselves. We could say the theatrical audience is a normal audience, which is why I have addressed myself to them. It is a friendly audience that is beginning to understand the necessity of knowing each other, the theatrical audience not only is an audience that loves the art and artistic expression, but it is an audience that considers important in the scene the events that take place and the emotions these bring about. I want the audience to socialize with those groups in need, to think, act, listen and see how important they are; how much we need to help the others, no matter the situation in which the others are.”
Seinforma: Giselle, you talk about the desire and the necessity of mutual consciousness to avoid racism and discrimination. What are the main goals of your play?
Giselle Vegter: “Babel has goals of different social kinds and not of artistic nature. I understand that it is a play performance and as such it has a fusion or a touch of artistic nature, but the aims we pursue are of a complete social nature. I will continue working in the future from this point of view; I am interested in the society, in its problems and diversity, for example the immigration and the issue about the refugees, which are arguments I personally find really interesting and which I intend to feature in my play performances.”
Seinforma: In your performance you have used as the core object a bottle of water located between two ships, and the hands as a symbol. What is the significance of the bottle of water and the hands?
Giselle Vegter: “Two years ago I saw in a newspaper a photograph that had in its left side a ship with refugees and in its right side a boat of the Italian coastal guard. In between both of the vessels there was a bottle of water. It was then that my idea of creating Babel began. In my opinion, the bottle of water between these two ships is just an interpretation of coexistence and integration. The hands symbolize the fact that the actors may listen to each other, coexist and find solutions together”.
Giselle is motivated by the sympathy of consciousness and the real meaning of knowledge. Do we really want to know ourselves and the others? Or is it that maybe we have that obscure and bitter idea that the people who seek shelter are not worth our trust? With the play Babel many prejudices were altered.
By Maribel Rodriguez Perez*/ Seinforma Canada Correspondent
Amsterdam.- Every summer in Amsterdam the International Theatre Festival, also known as the “Het IJ Festival”, is celebrated. The last time I had the chance of interviewing one of the youngest artistic directors of the festival, Giselle Vegter; Giselle, with Dutch nationality but a citizen of the world by choice, participated with a play which caught everyone’s attention.
Her play is on that part of society we know as refugees. With the dramaturgy of Fenneke Wekker and the production of Kwinten Vissers, Giselle expressed her opinion about what it means to be a refugee with a play called Babel, with the participation of only two actors.
After having done an intense selection which lasted over a year, Giselle chose an actor from Iraq and a Dutch actress, who had as a role the representation of an Iraqi refugee and an Immigration officer in Holland respectively. Babel is the conversation between these two characters.
During the performance, Giselle emphasized the question “How can we evaluate somebody who wants to live here in Holland?” Giselle answered to the audience, “In Europe we are in the position of choosing if an immigrant can stay or not; I find this to be very unfair. I also understand that for the governments it is very difficult to find an answer or a solution. With Babel I want to pay attention to the questions that exist about this argument.”
Giselle, besides being an art director, has worked as a volunteer with fugitives, to whom she could learn to relate, listen to their experiences and get to know them deeper. Eventually she became really interested in the life of the young Iraqi she used as main character in her play.
It is interesting to see that for Giselle the most important thing in her representation is the invitation to people to learn to live together, to coexist with one another. “We meet up with the rest and it is here when we learn to be with them, when we get to know the others.” says Giselle.
When the performance was over we had the following dialogue:
Seinforma: Giselle, why did you choose the name Babel for your play?
Giselle Vegter: “The name Babel has a multicultural meaning, for me Babel is a way in which the people in this world can express; besides Babel is the story of a city from whence the inhabitants moved away because they had begun speaking different languages and could not understand each other. For me it is a word that stands for those moments in which we cannot understand each other because we come from different cultures o because we live in different ways.”
Seinforma: Another argument that was in question in the representation was that one of the dilemma; the truth is that in different European countries the refugees or war fugitives are a dilemma. Giselle, does the dilemma of the refugees exist or not? What is your opinion in this respect?
Giselle Vegter: “We, Europeans, are a dilemma, because we as Europeans have to provide assurance not only to the refugees that arrive to our countries, but to the entire population, and many times this becomes our weak point. When big cultural differences exist or when we find out that people come to our countries because they need freedom, because they are escaping from war or because they are looking for safer conditions, sometimes our position is not the best. This is why many times we ought to accept sadly that we still do not have the necessary means and that many times we cannot offer wellbeing and assure a good stay in our countries; therefore many European countries cannot accept refugees, o in many other cases the people that seek shelter have to wait a very long time, even more than a year, to receive an answer.”
Seinforma: Giselle, you have chosen the theatrical audience as the main receivers of your idea, of your intention not only as an art director, but as a human being and of your devotion for sympathy. Where do you get your inspiration from?
Giselle Vegter: “We could say my motivation comes from getting to know each other, to understand each other, from not limiting ourselves. We could say the theatrical audience is a normal audience, which is why I have addressed myself to them. It is a friendly audience that is beginning to understand the necessity of knowing each other, the theatrical audience not only is an audience that loves the art and artistic expression, but it is an audience that considers important in the scene the events that take place and the emotions these bring about. I want the audience to socialize with those groups in need, to think, act, listen and see how important they are; how much we need to help the others, no matter the situation in which the others are.”
Seinforma: Giselle, you talk about the desire and the necessity of mutual consciousness to avoid racism and discrimination. What are the main goals of your play?
Giselle Vegter: “Babel has goals of different social kinds and not of artistic nature. I understand that it is a play performance and as such it has a fusion or a touch of artistic nature, but the aims we pursue are of a complete social nature. I will continue working in the future from this point of view; I am interested in the society, in its problems and diversity, for example the immigration and the issue about the refugees, which are arguments I personally find really interesting and which I intend to feature in my play performances.”
Seinforma: In your performance you have used as the core object a bottle of water located between two ships, and the hands as a symbol. What is the significance of the bottle of water and the hands?
Giselle Vegter: “Two years ago I saw in a newspaper a photograph that had in its left side a ship with refugees and in its right side a boat of the Italian coastal guard. In between both of the vessels there was a bottle of water. It was then that my idea of creating Babel began. In my opinion, the bottle of water between these two ships is just an interpretation of coexistence and integration. The hands symbolize the fact that the actors may listen to each other, coexist and find solutions together”.
Giselle is motivated by the sympathy of consciousness and the real meaning of knowledge. Do we really want to know ourselves and the others? Or is it that maybe we have that obscure and bitter idea that the people who seek shelter are not worth our trust? With the play Babel many prejudices were altered.
***
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Multimedia
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“We, Europeans, have to provide assurance not only to the refugees that arrive to our countries, but to the entire population.” expressed Giselle Vegter, Artistic Director of the play Babel. (Photo Maribel Rodriguez/ Seinforma Correspondent)
SPECIAL SERIES
MIGRATIONS
Migrations: Routes, Dreams and Reality
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH EUROPEAN PLAYWRIGHT GISELLE VEGTER
*Maribel Rodríguez Pérez, our correspondent in Holland, takes part in several volunteering programs in Europe. Her journalistic work has been related to the South of Europe, especially to the Balkan countries.
After having seen Babel and having met Giselle, I can say that when we historically talk about Babel we refer to the biblical passage in which the inhabitants of Babylon began to speak in different languages and stopped understanding each other, they decided to branch and move to other places. Today the inhabitants of Babel are us, a new generation of globalized young people who look for mutual understanding, despite coming from different places and having different customs and mores.
The play performance Babel is the conversation between a refugee from Iraq and an Immigration Officer in Holland. (Photo Radio Cicada/Seinforma Canada).
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