Bety Catfur
Part of “Resistance is a Girl who Changes the World” series
Performed by Julio Elvisey Pisică & Andreea Petre
Resistance is a Girl who Changes the World - a video monologue series, as part of the cultural international project Stories of Girls’ Resistance. The series showcases the inspirational, complex, and unfiltered stories of the girls that fight back and imagine better worlds for them and the societies in which they live. These stories are brought to life through video art, music, theatre, poetry, and other forms of creative documentation. These 3 (of 11 in total) video monologues are produced by the Giuvlipen theatre and performed by Roma artists.
This is the second episode of the video monologues series "Resistance is a Girl Who Changes the World", based on the story of Bety from Romania. What Bety realized after a school bullying episode is that she wants to become an actress. And that she feels fulfilled when she writes verses that have a therapeutic effect. That is why what best describes her are rhymes too:
"Come sit down, let me introduce myself! It's me Bety! Smart crow, extremely shukar
And let me be clear, you don't mess with me or with what is mine
I have enough brains, I'm crafty,
Honest, blunt actress and DJ, a poet with honey.
Cause it feels good under my skin, I love to be me
Any character suits me perfectly
Bety CatFur cause I do all playfully,
I am not afraid to be me, I know I am worth
I have darkness in my skin and all things explode"
She was finalist for the 2017 Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award from New York, and in 2020 she was 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. Her performance “Roma Futurism” has been showcased in multiple art spaces such as: the Museum of Contemporary Art from Belgrade; FutuRoma – the collateral exhibition at Venice Biennale; the Critical Romani Studies conference at Central European University in Budapest and the Romanian Cultural Institute in London. In the same year she was acknowledged by PEN World Voices International Play Festival 2018 in New York as one of the ten most respected dramatists of the world.
In 2021 she exhibited her first video installation “Future is a safe place hidden in my braids” divided into 3 short films that depict futuristic rituals for healing transgenerational trauma of Roma people and project a safe future for the community.
