Andreea Tudose is a Romanian actor & theatre-maker. She moved to the UK as a child, and her work focuses on the material, linguistic and cultural realities of being a migrant. Two of her solo durational performance pieces recently featured at the Biennale Archipelago Mediterraneo (Sicily). She works with Projekt Europa on their Artistic Advisory Board and as Assistant Producer with Odd Eyes Theatre.
CRY FOR ME is a dystopian cabaret that imagines a not too implausible world in which crying can be outsourced -like everything else we don’t have time for- to a cheap migrant workforce. It’s based on Romanian folk customs of wailing for the dead, where professional mourners come to funerals to cry for the deceased, exorcising grief and allowing families to feel that their personal loss is also a communal loss. Professional mourning originated as a practice in Ancient Egypt, China, the Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures, and it’s swiftly dying out around the world. In Romania, the wailers (bocitoare) are mostly older women (babe), rooted in their communities with deep, encyclopaedic knowledge of their neighbours. When these women die, the whole practice will die with them.
"Our children live in the most deprived ward in London and their parents cannot afford to pay for the classes and activities many more privileged children enjoy after school and at the weekends. A free-to-access youth group run by a local theatre in a professional setting is an incredible opportunity."
Local school teacher
